



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



GhapJ&H... Copyright No... 
Shelt._,.L_'i__ 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




USINESS 
OPENINGS 

FOR GIRLS 



BY 

SALLIE JOY WHITE 

AUTHOR OF 

<( Cookery in the Public Schools » 



yfjf&f 



THE WERNER COMPANY 

NEW YORK AKRON, OHIO CHICAGO 

1899 



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v\H&^n 



38911 



Copyright, 1899, 

BY 

THE WERNER COMPANY 

Business Openings for Girls 







TO 

MY DEAR LITTLE DAUGHTERS 

BESSIE AND GRACE 

WHO HAVE BEEN SUCH AN INSPIRATION IN MY 

WORK FOR OTHER GIRLS, THIS LITTLE 

VOLUME IS DEDICATED BY THEIR 

LOVING MOTHER 



CONTENTS 



1 

SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS . 

II 
SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS {continued) 

III 
ARTISTIC AND HYGIENIC DRESSMAKING . 

IV 

NEWSPAPER WORKERS 

V 

newspaper WORKERS {continued) 

VI 

STENOGRAPHERS AND TYPEWRITERS . 

VII 
PRESERVES AND PICKLES . 

VIII 

GUIDES AND SHOPPERS 

IX 

PROFESSIONAL MENDERS . 

X 

REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE 

XI 
INSURANCE AND ADVERTISING 

XII 
PIANO AND ORGAN TUNING . 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 



SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS 

WOMEN who were girls half a century ago, 
and who, looking back over the years, see 
what the time has brought both in the way of ad- 
vantage and opportunity, may well call this, as 
one of them did to me not long since, " The golden 
age for women." 

My own dear mother had a natural love for the 
practice of medicine and surgery. She never 
thought of such a thing as studying and practic- 
ing them, but how earnestly she wished she had 
been a boy so that she might have had her be- 
loved profession. Yet she never dared to breathe 
that wish aloud, for it would have been considered 
" unladylike," and she would have been regarded 
as little less than a lunatic had she spoken the wish 
of her heart into the most sympathetic ear. So, 
as she did not care to attract undue attention, she 
kept quiet. And when the time at last came that 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

a woman did study medicine, and take the degree 
of M.D., and had the liberty to hang out a sign 
announcing her occupation, my mother had taken 
upon herself duties which she could not lay aside 
for a student's life. But no one was more glad 
than she when this did come about. Other women 
could have what she was denied, and that made a 
happiness for her. 

"When I was a girl," our noble Lucy Stone 
once said to me, " I seemed to be shut out of 
everything that I wanted to do. I might teach 
school, that is, if I would keep as good order and 
teach as well as a man for a good deal less money ; 
I might go out dressmaking, or tailoring, or trim 
bonnets, or I might work in a factory, or go out 
to domestic service. Thus the i mights' ended 
and the * might nots* began. A few years ago, 
when my daughter left Boston University, with 
her degree of B.A., she might do what she chose. 
All the professions were open to her; she could 
enter into any line of business. " 

Mrs. Stone did not say, although she might have 
done so with absolute truth, that it was because 
she, and others like her, had been persistent and 
courageous and true, that the way had been made 
possible, not only for her own daughter, but for 
thousands of other daughters. Bless her for the 
brave work she has done ! 



SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS 

To-day the young woman pauses to consider 
which of the many open roads she shall take. It 
has ceased to be a matter of obligation to her, it 
is largely a question of choice. 

These chapters will not touch upon the profes- 
sions which are open to women ; they are for the 
girls who have no special desire to study medicine 
or law or theology ; they are for the everyday, 
wide-awake, alert girls who have business capacity, 
and prefer an active life to the sedentary one of the 
student. Neither will they touch upon any of the 
phases of artistic life. They are to be as practical 
as possible, and I want to say here that they are 
none of them theoretical. They will not tell 
merely what girls may do, but what they have 
done. 

One of the first openings that came to women, 
outside of the circumscribed list that was given by 
Mrs. Stone, was that of tending in stores. This 
opening was made at the time of the Civil War, 
when so many men went into the army, leaving 
occupations of every kind, that women must needs 
do the work. Those of you who have made a 
study of history understand that when an advance 
step is made it is never retraced. There is no such 
thing as going back. So when, in the story of the 
world's progress, you read of the advancement 
made by women, you take the fact gladly, because 
13 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

it is something done for all time. The women who 
have lived and worked any part of the time for 
the past twenty-five years, have felt that they 
were living and working in one of the most impor- 
tant epochs of the civilized world's history. A 
young girl came to me the other day, alive and 
alert, as the girl of to-day is, and said, " I am so 
glad that it has been given me to live just now. I 
come to all the good things of life as a heritage, 
and yet not so late but that I catch the echoes of 
the struggle for its possession, and kiss the hands 
of the women who have gained it for me." That 
was just after she had witnessed the closing tab- 
leau of the Historical Pageant, which showed the 
women of achievement, in art, profession, or trade, 
who stood, nearly a hundred of them, grouped 
about Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Mary Liver- 
more and Mrs. Lucy Stone. I don't wonder that 
this girl, full of ideals of true living, thrilled, as 
she said, " to her finger-tips/' when the group 
sang " The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and 
the immense audience rose to its feet to do hom- 
age to the author, who was the central figure of 
the whole. Being a girl of average ability, and 
firm principle, it is a good time in which to live. 
The chances for success are good, and oppor- 
tunity is better than it ever has been. 

Take mercantile life, for instance. I have 



SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS 

often heard young girls say that it was all non- 
sense to expect any preferment there ; that only 
the men got advanced, and that only men became 
the head of the house. Now there is no reason 
why a woman should not conduct a mercantile 
business if she wishes, and if she has the capital. 
Presumably one reason that women do not is be- 
cause when they have money they prefer to in- 
vest it in some manner which shall bring them a 
steady income, without exertion of their own. 
They let the money do the earning, and they take 
the result. Another reason is, that when girls take 
a position, they do not, as boys do, take it with the 
idea of making it a life work. It is with them a 
temporary matter, a something to bridge over a 
time of waiting between leaving school and set- 
tling down into homes of their own. With a boy 
it is serious business ; with a girl it is a make-shift. 
But when a girl really makes up her mind to 
succeed, she usually does what she sets out to. 
There is, in the city of Boston, a woman, not yet 
in middle life, who is the proprietor and manager 
of four large and fashionable millinery establish- 
ments. About the year 1879 s ^e began business 
in quite a small way at the South End. She at- 
tracted customers and kept them ; her business 
increased until she ventured to take another store 
farther down, still keeping the original one for 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

those women who had got into the habit of going 
there. Still the business grew ; a third store, in 
one of the " millinery streets " down town, was 
taken, and finally a large establishment on Wash- 
ington street was opened. Then she added fash- 
ionable dressmaking to her business, employing 
the most famous " ladies' tailor " whom she could 
find. In person she manages the detail of the 
business at all four of her stores, and she spends 
a part of each day in everyone of them. She has 
no fixed hours ; her employes do not know at 
what time she is coming, so they are always ready 
for her. She does all her own buying, and there 
is not one loose end in all this community of busi- 
ness of which she is the real head. Now that 
woman had no exceptional opportunities ; she 
simply went to work in earnest, and " minded her 
business M literally. The result is a splendid name, 
a fine business, and a fortune. The story is not, 
by any means, a solitary instance ; there are others 
like it, but I have cited her as an example because 
I have watched her upward progress, and have 
known her struggles ever since she had her one 
shop at the South End. 

The success of anyone, in any line of work, de- 
pends upon the spirit in which she takes it up. The 
following story, which came under my notice re- 
cently, and which is true, will illustrate my mean- 



SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS 

ing better than any explanation. A young girl 
had tried for a long time to get a position in one 
of the leading dry goods stores in Boston. Fi- 
nally her persistency was rewarded by the promise 
of a trial. She was put at the handkerchief coun- 
ter during a " bargain sale." The first morning 
she was there a gentleman came by, and stopped 
at the handkerchief counter, looking carelessly at 
the goods, and the prices which were marked on 
each box. She did not wait for him to ask for 
anything special, but she immediately drew his 
attention to some handkerchiefs which were really 
a fine " bargain. " He did not seem inclined to 
buy, but she was so interested to make the sale, 
and talked so intelligently about them, that the 
customer took half a dozen of the handkerchiefs. 
When Saturday night came, and she was paid her 
salary, she received a sum much in advance of 
that which had been promised her. She took it 
at once to the head of her department, thinking 
there must be a mistake, but she was assured that 
it was all right. 

" Do you remember selling a half dozen hand- 
kerchiefs to one gentleman the first morning you 
were here ? " he inquired. 

" Why, yes, I remember," she replied, "but 
what has that to do with it ? " 

" Simply this — that was the head of the firm ; 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

and he was so pleased that he inquired about you, 
and said that any girl who could sell his own goods 
to a proprietor was worth a good salary and a 
steady place, so he ordered you put in the pay 
roll at the wages I have just given you, with the 
promise of a rise as soon as it is possible." 

A thing like this isn't likely to happen every 
day, perhaps ; but of one thing you may rest quite 
assured, my dear girls, simple eyeservice is noted 
more frequently than you imagine, while the 
honest, hearty rendering of duty will find the re- 
ward. Not long ago a prominent business man 
in Boston said to me, when we were talking over 
the reason why so few young men really succeed, 
some things that will bear repetition for the girls 
who think seriously of a business life. " The boys " 
— and he might have said the girls too — " in the 
store whose watches are always on time at the 
dinner or closing hour, are the ones who will not 
advance in business; while those who are asking 
for more to do, instead of making apologies for 
work not finished, are those who find room at the 
top of the ladder, and who do not complain of the 
crowd at the foot." It is the Bible's own " in 
season and out of season " work that brings good 
results. 

Perhaps another reason why women do not of- 
tener attain a high position in mercantile life, is 



SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS 

because they do not " learn the business M as a boy 
does. When a girl seeks a position in a store she 
expects a living salary at once. The immediate 
need of money is the force which impels her to 
work; she must be her own breadwinner. A boy 
expects to give a certain time to learning the de- 
tail of business, and takes a place at first with 
very small remuneration, and works his way to the 
more profitable position. 

A gentleman in Boston, the head of one of the 
large firms, who has thought a good deal about 
this matter, determined to try this training pro- 
cess with girls. So he advertised for one hundred 
girls to begin a practical mercantile training. The 
girls were to be graduates of the public schools of 
the city or near suburbs ; they were to live at 
home, or with friends or relatives who would look 
after them when they were out of the store. 
None would be received without the written con- 
sent of the parents or guardians. They were to 
be paid two dollars a week for a year, and at the 
end of that time were to be advanced as they 
deserved. 

It was a very easy matter to find the one hundred 
girls ; indeed, double the number might have been 
readily engaged, so numerous were the applicants. 
The duties of the girls at first were to tend the tubes 
which carried the money to the counting-room, and 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

do up the parcels ; they were changed about fre- 
quently from counter to counter, so when the year 
was over every bright girl knew the stock 
thoroughly and the prices, and had found out 
whether she liked the business and what department 
she preferred. At the end of the year, the head 
of the firm requested every girl to write him a 
letter, telling him how she liked the business, and 
expressing preference as to the part she desired 
to serve in. I had the pleasure of reading all 
these letters, and I was delighted at the intelli- 
gence and the character that the majority of them 
showed. As far as possible the girls were pro- 
moted in the line of their expressed preference, 
and a new lot, double the number, came in to fill 
the places at the tubes. One of the girls, who 
came in as a tube girl, is now the superintendent 
of the desk of one department, and has a salary of 
eighteen dollars a week; another is the head sales- 
woman at a counter, receiving fifteen dollars a week. 
Others receive from seven to twelve dollars, the av- 
erage being ten dollars a week. The quicker they are, 
the more personal patronage they control, the more 
pay they have, because their services are of value. 
Mr. Jordan, for it is the senior partner of Jordan, 
Marsh & Co., who made the experiment, says he 
has never regretted it, for he feels that the girls 
do better work for the training they get. One of 



SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS 

the best proofs of the efficacy of his plan is the 
fact that every other house is glad to get a girl 
who has graduated from the tubes at Jordan's. 

So you see there are chances for girls, if they 
will only take them, as well as for boys ; but they 
must be in earnest, must work as though it 
were a life work, even though they do lay it 
down after awhile ; must not despise the day of 
small things, and must not turn the sympathy of 
the public whom they serve to ridicule and con- 
tempt, by speaking of themselves as " salesladies/ 1 
but honestly, simply and correctly as " sales- 
women," until such time as they shall become the 
proprietors, wholly or in part, of an establishment, 
when they will be " merchants." 



II 

SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS {continued) 

T T Then one considers the large army of women 
*A* and girls who are employed in stores all 
over the country, the first wonder is that so many 
can be found to fill the places. In several of the 
large stores in Boston — the largest ones, of 
course — the number of girls employed reaches far 
into the hundreds. At one establishment of note, 
which has a national reputation, about twelve 
hundred are on the pay roll. Of these about two 
hundred are cash girls, four hundred are tube 
girls, one hundred are stock girls, and the rest are 
saleswomen. At another large store the number 
is one thousand. Of these three hundred and ten 
are cash girls — there are no tube girls — two hun- 
dred are stock girls, and the rest salesgirls. Other 
establishments, according to their capacity, em- 
ploy from twenty-five to one thousand. 

I tried very hard, for my own satisfaction, to 
find out just about how many girls were thus em- 
ployed in the city of Boston alone, but it would 



SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS 

take a year, or even longer, by the most sys- 
tematic method, to ascertain ; for not only do the 
large stores employ them, but every little thread- 
and-needle store has one or two girls employed, 
and usually in these the proprietor is also a 
woman. The number goes a long way into the 
thousands. And yet there is never a difficulty in 
filling a position. Does a worker drop out of the 
ranks, for any reason whatever, somebody is al- 
ways waiting to step into her place, and oftener 
than not there are a dozen disappointed ones for 
the one successful seeker. There is a pathetic side 
to this, which must be recognized. In spite of the 
number of women and girls employed, there is an 
ever-increasing number waiting for the chance. 
The supply every year grows still greater than the 
demand — a condition of affairs which economists 
always consider unfortunate. 

And just here, before stating the duties which 
devolve upon these girls and women who enter 
the mercantile life, I want to say a word to the 
young women outside the large cities who think 
that the fortune for which they so ardently long 
may be reached at a grasp within the boundaries 
of town. There can be no fallacy more fatal than 
this. It is like believing fairy tales, or taking the 
Arabian Nights seriously. 

The city is no place to come to, expecting to 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

find employment, unless one has friends who can 
use influence in her behalf and befriend her when 
she comes friendless and strange into the midst 
of a new life. Workers are plenty in the cities. 
One has only to go into the office of some mer- 
chant who has advertised for extra help, say at 
the holiday season. As a rule, if fifty are wanted, 
five hundred will come to apply. The majority 
of these have to be disappointed of course. All 
these applicants are from the city or near suburbs ; 
and with all this army to choose from, what 
chance does the girl stand who is unused to city 
ways and city habits ? 

I know the impatient frown which will come 
upon many faces as this is read, but all that I say 
is true. I have heard country girls talk of com- 
ing to the city for employment, giving as one rea- 
son that they wanted more social life. Well, that 
is just what they will not get ; the woman of busi- 
ness is not a woman of leisure, and she has no 
time for society. She will find more social life in 
her own home, even if she be a worker, than she 
could ever have in the city, and there is no lone- 
someness more absolute than the loneliness of a 
stranger in a crowd. Salaries are not large enough 
to permit of much relaxation in the way of enter- 
tainments, and after the day's work is over one is 
too tired to go in search of enjoyment. In the 



SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS 

country home, in these days, the daily paper and 
the magazine comes, so that one may keep in 
touch with the world, even if she be at one side 
of the bustle and confusion of city life. The 
fashion articles tell her how to dress her hair and 
make her gown, and gives her the latest notions 
in small toilet details. No town is so small that it 
has not its public library, where all the new books 
come ; and the lecture and concert are not infre- 
quent in visits. Railways and telegraphs have 
brought the corners of the earth together, so that 
one is never very far away from the centers of 
things. There are occupations, too, for the girls 
who stay at home, and particularly those who stay 
in the country, and these will be talked about by 
and by. Do not throng to the cities in search of 
employment, for you will be doomed to bitter 
disappointment. The country stores employ 
women, as well as the city stores, and many a girl 
makes a good beginning in them. I, myself, know 
country towns where, a few years ago, nearly 
every position in the stores was held by young 
men, which to-day are held by women. Every- 
where it has come to be quite the accepted state 
of things that women shall sell goods. 

In the city stores the rules governing the duties 
of the various employes are arbitrary. And they 
are always rigorously enforced. The law has 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

taken the matter of child-labor into its protecting 
hands, so that now no boy or girl under fourteen 
may be permanently employed. That, then, sets 
the date of the girl's beginning. The cash girls 
are, as a rule, fourteen and fifteen years of age. 
Their duty is to run on errands, carry bundles 
from counter to counter for customers, and be at 
the beck and call of the salesmen or saleswomen. 
In the days before money was sent to the desk by 
machinery, the girls had to carry it to the desk 
and bring back the change and the parcel. But 
notwithstanding this duty has been taken from 
them in many stores, the girls still have enough 
to do and they do not find many idle moments. 
They have to be at their post, ready to begin 
work when the store is opened. As most stores 
open at eight o'clock, this means being there at 
certainly quarter before eight. They must report 
to their superintendents, put away their street 
garments, and be at their places at the unlocking 
of the door. The time of their arrival is marked 
against their names, and if they are late they are 
fined a small sum. In some places they are 
allowed to work out the fine, by shortening their 
dinner hour by as many minutes as they are late, 
but in other places this chance is not given them, 
and the fine must stand. All day long they are 
on their feet, flying about here and there, and I 



SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS 

don't believe anybody is gladder, when the big 
gong gives the signal to lock the doors, than are 
these young girls. For these long hours and all 
their work, they receive two and a half or three 
dollars a week, and this must oftentimes be made 
smaller by the fines. If a cash girl prove herself 
bright, clever and capable, she may look forward 
to being advanced into a position as stock girl or 
salesgirl, or given a place in the mail-order de- 
partment. The " stock girl," as she is called, has 
charge of the stock for a certain counter. She 
must see that this counter is well supplied, and 
she must keep the goods in order. She must pos- 
sess watchfulness, deftness, and pride in the at- 
tractive appearance of her goods. Her hours are 
the same as all the rest, and she has from five to 
six dollars a week. 

It is usually the ambition of every cash girl to 
become a saleswoman ; that is, if she has any 
marked adaptability for the business. It is a 
proud day when she is allowed for the first time 
to attend upon a customer and to supply her 
wants. When she makes her first trial, she 
usually proves whether she has the stuff for suc- 
cess in her or not. Many eyes are upon her. The 
hours that the saleswoman has to keep are the 
same as those of the cash girl, and she is subject 
to the same rules, until she arrives at the head of 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

a department, when a little more latitude is al- 
lowed. The same system of fines prevails that 
governs the cash girl. One would think that 
when a girl had been given a position of dignity 
and responsibility that there would be no need of 
anything like discipline ; but it is found necessary, 
to the shame of the workers be it said. 

Discipline varies in different establishments. In 
some it is almost military in its severity and its 
perfectness, the girls not being allowed to con- 
verse with each other except upon topics con- 
nected with the business. At other stores they 
may chatter as much as they please ; they are 
supposed not to neglect customers, but they often 
do, or else betray such an utter indifference to the 
customer's wants that she goes away irritated 
without making her purchase. I had a funny lit- 
tle experience once in a Boston store. I wanted 
to match some silk to ribbons, and I went with 
my pattern. As I entered I was met by one of 
the proprietors who is known to me, and we 
walked along to the ribbon counter together. I 
handed my sample to a girl there, who did not 
look up, but reaching it back to me said rather 
curtly : " We Ve nothing like it." 

" But you haven't looked," I persisted. 

She was about to persist also, when an odd look 
on the face of one of the other girls made her 



SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS 

glance at me. As she saw the proprietor standing 
by my side, she turned very red, murmured a con- 
fused apology, and began hunting for the ribbon, 
which she very soon found. 

I didn't pity her distress one bit ; I think I was 
rather glad that she was caught in that way. It 
will probably be a lesson to her and she will be 
more careful in the future. 

Quite in contrast to this was a scene I witnessed 
in another large establishment. I was waiting for 
a friend who was to have a cloak tried on ; it was 
not quite done, so we sat until it should come 
downstairs. A lady came in with a little girl for 
whom she wished to purchase a cloak. The child 
was large of her age and difficult to fit ; but the 
saleswoman who was attending upon her never 
lost her patience at all. She tried on, and tried 
on ; she was as interested as possible to please the 
customer ; she made suggestions, and did all in 
her power to give the mother exactly what she 
wanted. The result was she made a good sale, 
and at the same time secured a constant customer. 
Do you suppose that the lady will ever go to that 
establishment again without asking the same one 
to serve her? Of course she won't. It is women 
like this one who make themselves valuable to 
their employers, and they are the ones, also, who 
are steadily advanced, and who come at length to 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

be the heads of departments. They are the women 
who get the larger salaries ; for they are worth 
the most money. They control a certain amount 
of trade. Customers will wait for them if they 
are busy, and will not trade with anyone else. 

In most of the large stores the proprietors know 
just how much each salesman or saleswoman sells 
every day, and in that way it is very easy to keep 
track of her value to the firm. When girls com- 
plain because their salaries are not raised when 
some other girl is advanced, they do not take it 
into account that they have not made themselves 
of value to those who employ them. 

There is something very mean in the mere giv- 
ing of eye-service. It is a species of dishonesty. 
With an honorable employer honest service cheer- 
fully given is nearly sure to meet the reward of 
advancement. I know that it is difficult to always 
be pleasant of voice, eye and bearing, that it is 
not easy to feign an interest one does not feel — 
but the thing to do is to feel the interest. Make 
the customer feel that you are as anxious that she 
shall be pleased as she herself is. It will be much 
easier to please her. There is no reason why the 
purchaser and the one from whom she makes her 
purchase should regard each other as natural ene- 
mies, and each be constantly on the lookout for 
some fancied insult or slight. If each would 



SALESWOMEN AND CASH GIRLS 

exercise patience and charity they would get on 
well enough. There is no need, because a girl takes 
a position in a store, that she shall proclaim a dec- 
laration of independence by her deportment to 
every customer — she can't afford to do it. Cour- 
tesy, self-respect and an interest in her business are 
the conditions of ultimate success, and no girl 
need fear failure if she has these added to a nat- 
ural ability to do the work she has undertaken. 
She will not only succeed, but she will win for 
herself friends who will regard her with admiration 
and respect, and will make her, in their thoughts, 
at least, the pattern for other women of her class 
to model themselves upon. 



Ill 

ARTISTIC AND HYGIENIC DRESSMAKING 

TN every town and village are young women and 
-L girls who are anxiously asking what they can 
do in their own community to earn a livelihood. 
The big, outside world has no attraction for them. 
They either want to keep in the shelter of the 
home, or else there is somebody for whom they 
themselves must be the home-keepers. Circum- 
stance, rather than desire or ambition, must be 
the governing power of their lives. If you would 
know how large is this army of waiting women 
you should pass a day at the Women's Educa- 
tional and Industrial Union in Boston, and get 
Mrs. Osborne to tell you of the appeals for help 
that come from Maine to Oregon, from Michigan to 
Florida. The burden of it all is, "Tell me what I 
can do at home to earn some money/' 

I would like to tell you how the Union comes 
to be besieged with applicants. I am sure the 
story will interest you, and you may, some of you, 
find a word of needed warning and advice in it. 
Three or four years ago all the newspapers in city 



ARTISTIC DRESSMAKING 

and country, daily and weekly, were filled with 
advertisements headed, u Work at Home/' and say- 
ing that if women would send either one dollar 
or two, as the case might be, she would receive 
outfit and instruction for art work to be done at 
home, and that after they had learned, they would 
be supplied with work, and could earn a nice bit 
of money at home. Well, you can have no idea 
how the responses came in ; the dollars literally 
poured into the hands of the advertisers. In re- 
turn a piece of very coarse velveteen, stamped 
with a pattern, and a few needlefuls of silk would 
be sent with directions for working ; when this 
piece of embroidery was finished, it was to be sent 
to the supply company, with another dollar, and 
if it was satisfactory, permanent work would be 
given. In almost all the cases there was no return 
for the dollar. It very rarely happened that the 
work suited, or if it did no reply came, and noth- 
ing more was heard from the money sent. In 
hundreds of instances the dollar or two could not 
be spared, and meant such sacrifice as few of us 
can understand. Presently this matter came to 
the notice of the Women's Union in Boston, and 
it set to work to stop the business. It got all the 
evidence it needed, and then it sent lawyers to 
the places. In most cases no responsible persons 
could be found, so nothing could be done by law. 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

It went to the newspapers and got the advertis- 
ing stopped, and got articles written about it. It 
couldn't get the money back for the poor women 
who had sent it, but it could prevent others 
from being duped. In this way the Union be- 
came known all over the country, and women be- 
gan to write to the Union for work. Of course, 
the Union could not supply them ; it could only 
point out to them what to avoid. 

There was one thing else plainly shown by the 
flood of answers which came to this fraudulent 
advertising. That was, not only were there hun- 
dreds, yes, thousands, of women wanting work, 
but the majority were anxious to do " art " work 
of some kind. Good, honest work, that was gen- 
uinely practical, found little favor in the eyes of 
the multitude. Somehow, anything that was 
"art," no matter how bad art it was, hadn't the 
flavor of labor about it. If it was work at all, it 
was " genteel" work, and " ladies " could do it. 
Now, girls, honestly, isn't that feeling a very silly 
one? If one finds it necessary to do anything 
for money, why not stand up squarely and face 
the fact, and do the work that comes to be done, 
whatever it may be, in a straightforward fashion, 
instead of dodging about under all sorts of make- 
believes, and pretending to be what one is not ? 

I referred to the misuse of the term " ladies " in 



ARTISTIC DRESSMAKING 

a former chapter ; just here I want to emphasize 
it. It is improper, a mistake in language, to speak 
of yourself, or of any other person, as " ladies " in 
connection with work of any kind. The term 
"lady" presupposes leisure. In the same way 
the word " gentleman M carries a like significance. 
Now, you know very well that the term " gentle- 
man of business" is never used, and you certainly 
never hear of " salesgentlemen." Isn't the very 
sound ridiculous? And yet your man of business 
often is the polished, well-bred man of society, with 
a position which no one can dispute. You can be 
well-bred women, even if you are work-women. 
You may be " ladies " at your leisure. But it isn't 
the insistence on the term that will make you so. 
On the contrary, the very use of the term in con- 
nection with work stamps you at once as ignorant 
if not ill-bred. 

A few years since I was passing the summer at 
a well-known seaside resort, and in a sudden 
emergency I wanted some laundry work done. 
I rang for the bell-boy of the hotel and asked 
him to see if the laundress could do it for me at 
once. He soon returned with the following 
reply : 

" I am sorry, Mrs. White, but the washerlady 
is out." 

Yes, I know you are laughing at the ridiculous- 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

ness of it ; but take care that you never make 
yourself ridiculous in a similar fashion. 

And now, if you are prepared to take up your 
work in true, dignified, work-woman fashion, I 
have a suggestion to make to those of you who 
have quick eyes, deft fingers, and a true taste ; I 
might add also, an artistic instinct, but I am get- 
ting to be a bit afraid of expressions of that kind 
— they are quite apt to make mischief. Still, 
there is an art side to the occupation I am about 
to suggest, but it must be taken sensibly, and not 
to the sacrifice of everything else. I know you 
are expecting something delightfully new, and I 
can fancy I hear a murmur of disappointment when 
I say — dressmaking ! 

Well, but you must understand that there is 
dressmaking and dressmaking. It is not the old- 
fashioned kind that I am about to commend to 
you, but the new, which has originality, idea and 
principles about it. The principles are beauty and 
comfort, the idea is becomingness and health, 
and all of it combined constitute the originality. 
I dare say you have all heard of " Dress Reform," 
and have grown to have a horror of the term be- 
cause it has stood for ugliness pure and simple, 
and for crankiness unadulterated. Well, it isn't 
called Dress Reform any more, but " artistic and 
hygienic dressing." This phase of it began with 



ARTISTIC DRESSMAKING 

Mrs. Flynt, when she invented the waist that 
should take the place of corsets. It was to be 
adapted to the figure, rather than force the figure 
to be adapted to it. Mrs. Flynt was wise in her 
day and generation ; she saw that interesting in- 
validism for women was going out of fashion, and 
that healthfulness was to become a fashion. She 
foresaw the generation of tennis-playing, horse- 
back-riding, mountain-climbing girls, devoted to 
gymnastics of all kinds, that was to rise up, and 
she wisely made ready for them. Room to de- 
velop, room to grow, was the principle upon which 
she " built " her waist — as the English woman 
would say — She did not start a crusade against 
beauty — no, indeed ! " Have everything as pretty 
as you like," she said, " but be true to Nature." At 
first, women eyed the waists askance ; they were 
suspicious of any innovation on old methods ; but 
by degrees they became interested, and the best 
proof of Mrs. Flynt's success is the large number 
of patent health waists that have been put upon 
the market since Mrs. Flynt started, and the num- 
bers that are sold. 

But that was only the beginning ; and it has 
been left to another woman, Mrs. Annie Jenness 
Miller, to make a rounding-out of the idea of 
proper dress. If there is anybody in the world 
who does not believe that a healthful dress can 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

be a pretty one, I only wish she could see some 
of the graceful gowns that Mrs. Miller evolves 
from that keen, artistic brain of hers. They are 
simply wonders. They keep close enough to the 
lines of Fashion not to seem queer ; but each 
gown is original and picturesque, having in it the 
very essence of graceful and becoming dressing, 
at the same time it is on the most strictly 
hygienic principles. Now there are hundreds of 
women who would like to adopt Mrs. Miller's 
dress plan, but their dressmakers turn up their 
noses at it, and it is, thus far, as a rule, impossible 
to get such gowns made. There are a few of the 
most fashionable dressmakers in Boston and New 
York who are seriously studying the idea; but 
they are the wise ones who look ahead, and 
who see what is coming, and are going to be 
ready. 

I venture to say that the reason why so few 
take it up is because it does require originality 
and artistic instinct to be successful in this line of 
work. But the girl or woman who is artistic in 
her feeling, and who has the gift of expressing 
this feeling, has here a field open before her that 
she will find very remunerative. It requires more 
skill to make dresses in this way than in the old 
stereotyped fashion, because much depends upon 
individual expression. I will assure you that sue- 



ARTISTIC DRESSMAKING 

cess lies in this line of work, for no one who sees 
the models of the dresses but becomes at once 
enamored of them, and is straightway in despair 
because she cannot have them. " There is nothing 
that prevents hundreds of women taking up this 
dress," said Mrs. Miller, a few weeks since, "but 
the impossibility of finding dressmakers who will 
attempt them." 

That gave me the idea at once of suggesting 
this occupation to artistic girls all over the coun- 
try. Here is an opening field that is, as yet, prac- 
tically unexploited. So many other occupations are 
overburdened with workers. Here is one asking 
the workers to come into it. You see that I was 
right when I told you there was dressmaking and 
dressmaking. One wants to understand the prin- 
ciples of fitting, but must be thoroughly emanci- 
pated from the idea that the only fitting is over a 
tight corset. Of course, it goes without saying that 
one must be a good needlewoman, must have an 
eye for color combinations, and must be able to 
adapt styles to different individuals. After that 
the work is simple enough. Mrs. Miller pub- 
lishes in her magazine, Dress, all her new models, 
so that it is easy to follow her, and the girl with 
originality may design for herself. If she have the 
ability to do this she will be more valuable to her 
customers than if she be able only to follow other 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

peopled models, and she may command a large 
price for her work. 

There is hardly a town of any size that will not 
support at least one dressmaker of this kind, and 
she may either go to her customers by the day, or 
she may have them come to her at her own house. 
Good dressmakers get all the way from two dollars 
to five dollars a day, according to their ability 
and originality. These are city prices, but I sup- 
pose there is no place where a good dressmaker 
would have less than the first-named price. You 
see a girl could have a good income, and make 
herself invaluable to her employers. At the same 
time she is doing something satisfactory, and is 
exercising her love for the beautiful and refined, 
and, with right governing ideas of what is beau- 
tiful in a gown, it must be a real delight to work 
on the pretty stuffs that are used nowadays. 

Think this matter over, girls, and see if it isn't 
a happy thought for some of you. If you know 
nothing of the matter send to the Jenness- 
Miller Publishing Company in New York for a 
copy of the magazine, Dress, and in that you 
will find what you will need to put you in the 
right way. I am sure that more than one girl 
will find her financial and business fortune in 
this work, and also that she will be grateful that 
it comes under the head of " home work." 



IV 

NEWSPAPER WORKERS 

7] MONG all the professions that have been 
A) opened to women during the past few years, 
none seems on first sight so tempting as that of 
newspaper work. I do not say " journalism, " for 
that is a term with which I have little sympathy. 
It is too dilettanti ; too little expressive of the 
real thing. Your genuine newspaper worker is an 
honest worker ; there's no make believe about 
him or her. As for your " journalist," well, he's 
very likely to think more of his title than his 
achievement. One of the best editors whom it is 
my good fortune to know, has a fashion of saying, 
if anyone speaks of a " journalist " to him, " Oh ! a 
journalist, is he? Well, he won't suit me I'm 
afraid ; what I'm looking for is a good, wide-awake 
newspaper man." 

So what I want to talk to you about is newspa- 
per work. In the beginning, by way of preface 
or apology, I am going to say that there is some 
danger that there will be a good deal of " I " in 
this paper. But as most of it is drawn from per- 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

sonal experience, the presence of this obtrusive 
little personal pronoun cannot very well be helped. 

There is more than one reason why this profes- 
sion should be regarded as a pleasant one, although 
it is a question whether the reasons are " good 
and sufficient/* In most cases they are based on 
wrong premises, and are arrived at through igno- 
rance of the whole affair. In the first place, many 
persons think it an easy way to earn a livelihood ; 
they think the remuneration greater than it really 
is; others think it a work that brings influence 
with it, and still others regard it as a somewhat 
less objectionable mode of work than that done 
with the hands, and are very fond of setting off 
mental labor against the purely manual labor. 
Others, again, are ambitious of position and think 
it a fine thing to have, as they term it, " the pub- 
lic ear." Now anybody, man or woman, who takes 
up this profession with any ideas of this kind, is 
very far astray, and will make a speedy and signal 
failure. 

It is one of the best professions in the world. It 
is one which catches and holds the enthusiasm of 
its workers as nothing else does. It opens possi- 
bilities of attainment that are undreamed of when 
the first steps are taken. But it is a profession 
that must be undertaken with humility of spirit, 
and treated always with the highest respect. It 



NEWSPAPER WORKERS 

cannot be used as a makeshift ; it will do nothing 
for the one who takes it up carelessly, or to serve 
a purpose, and drops it after the purpose is served 
or some other position won. It gives much to 
its honest workers, but to the others it refuses its 
best gifts. 

After twenty years of constant work in the pro- 
fession which I chose when very few young 
women had dreamed of choosing it, I am come 
more than ever to believe that it is a profession 
specially suited to the woman who suits it. You 
see I don't say all women, for not all women will 
make successful newspaper workers, any more 
than all men will. It is not an easy work, albeit 
it is fascinating. It, more nearly than any other 
I know, will answer the description given of wom- 
en's work in the old doggerel which ran, 

"Man's work is from sun to sun, 
Woman's work is never done." 

This is really true of newspaper work. It is liter- 
ally never done. Your paper goes on through 
everything ; it is printed every day, and sometimes 
several times a day, as in the case of the paper 
with which I am connected, The Boston Herald, 
which has eight editions every day. Can you un- 
derstand what that means ? Something fresh and 
new in every one. The last incident caught even 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

in its happening, chronicled in white heat, and put 
before the waiting public before it is two hours 
old. Nothing must escape; every class in the 
community must be looked after, from the mer- 
chant-prince to the rag-picker. Do you realize 
what this requires? Quickness, alertness, and 
more than that, if you will let me coin a word, 
aliveness. A readiness to do whatever may come 
to you, to turn out an interesting story on any 
subject, to make the most of trifling incidents, in 
short, to give value to every piece of work put 
into your hand to do. 

Here, for instance, is a sample of what may 
come to a worker, what has come, in fact, and it 
is no exaggeration. Busy on a "special," as a 
long article to be ready for use at any time is 
called, you are interrupted by the call from the 
managing editor's desk. You answer the sum- 
mons and find your superior officer with an open 
letter in his hand. 

"I have just heard," he says, "that there is 

every likelihood that Mrs. will be put on 

nomination for the School Board. It is to be 
done suddenly, and isn't generally known. We 
want to be prepared for the emergency, so will 
you go out and get a sketch of her to use this aft- 
ernoon? Get a full column, more if you can, and 
see what her views are on such and such points," 



NEWSPAPER WORKERS 

naming them over. "And, by the way, such a 
person, " naming some distinguished individual, 
11 is to arrive this afternoon. Can't you see him 
and get a little interview? Have it for the morn- 
ing. Perhaps you 'd better go to the station to 
meet the train ; and while you 're waiting you 
might run into Harmony Hall and see what is go- 
ing on there." 

Well, off you go. To facilitate matters you 
take a carriage and go to the house of the proposed 
candidate for school committee. She has just 
gone to see some one who is interested in her 
nomination, and off you start after her. Perhaps 
you catch her at this point, and perhaps, which is 
much more likely, you have to follow her else- 
where. You find her, get your points speedily, 
back you go to your desk, formulating your sketch 
in your mind meanwhile. It's pretty near lunch 
time ; but there's no time to think of anything 
but that sketch ; there is a little over an hour in 
which to catch the edition you want, and at least 
a column to be written. You lock your door and 
begin. Somebody knocks, and you keep on writ- 
ing ; nothing short of the crack of doom or the 
managing editor's bell will stop your pen. You 
and Time are having 'a fine race, and, being a true 
newspaper worker, you win. Hurrah ! the last 
line is written, five minutes to spare. You carry 
*5 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

the copy to " the desk/' there's no time for blue 
pencil, and up it goes to the composing room. 

And now for a good luncheon. But what is 
this ? The city editor appears ; somebody is ill, 
an assignment overlooked ; w T on't you take it, 
please ? There's really nobody else ; everyone is 
out, or busy " catching the edition." It will take 
you a mile in the opposite direction from which 
you are to go to capture your " interview " that is 
coming on the train ; good-by, luncheon. A cup 
of coffee, or a plate of soup, is hastily swallowed, if 
there is that time to spare, if not you go without 
it. You get the points needed, write them out on 
your lap in the horse cars, then go on to the inter- 
view, with " Harmony Hall " by way of diversion. 
Luckily for you, there isn't much going on there 
— a paragraph will dispose of it — so on you go. 
You are in time for the train, you look about, 
there's nobody from any other newspaper there. 
You're spirits rise, you've scored a point. In 
comes the train. Your " interview " is amenable, 
asks you to drive to the hotel, and talk on the 
way. It's astonishing how much information you 
can get in a very little time. Correct information, too, 
just what your public wants. And here is a point 
which I desire to give to the would-be newspaper 
girl. You are of little value to your paper unless 
the information you get is perfectly correct and 



NEWSPAPER WORKERS 

reliable, and unless you know and understand 
the points which the public and the paper not 
only want to know, but have the right to know. 

Well, you go back with your material and 
write out your interview. Perhaps you think 
since that is done you will be at liberty. It may 
be that you will ; and it may be, also, that you 
will be asked to go somewhere in the evening and 
write an account of a lecture, a party, a conven- 
tion, a fancy fair, or a revival. That is the news- 
paper day, and pretty much every day. Now, 
whatever else you may believe, do not take it up 
thinking that the work is light or easy, for you 
will have a sad and speedy awakening. 

In regard to any personal gain of influence or 
recognition, that comes slowly. In taking a posi- 
tion on a newspaper, you are but one of many 
workers, and you have your own place to make. 
In the first place, you must make yourself of value 
to your employers, your editors. You must show 
them that you have within you the quality which 
will, when it has had experience, develop into 
good working power. This you must prove in 
small ways, before you will be given large oppor- 
tunities. The mere fact that you have been taken 
on to a paper does not make you a newspaper 
woman. You are " on trial " merely, and you must 
prove your mettle well, before you are admitted 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

fully to the inner circle, and recognized as an ac- 
cepted worker. Some women who have an ambi- 
tion to be " journalists," seem to think that 
the whole thing is accomplished if they can write 
something that is printed, and then have personal 
notes of themselves put into the papers, saying of 
them that " Miss Assurance, of the Tattler," says 
so and so. Nobody knows who Miss Assurance is, 
but what does she care ? She has been in print. 
She calls that " being famous," and she speaks of 
her connection with the Tattler in a way that is 
very funny to those who know the truth of the 
matter ; namely, that this " connection " consists 
of the acceptance of an unpaid contribution, or 
the occasional request for the notice of a small 
concert, or an insignificant book, the payment 
consisting in a couple of tickets for the entertain- 
ment, or the volume to be reviewed. It seems 
queer that persons should be content to pose as 
" journalists " on such very slim pretenses as these, 
but there are many who do, and I don't want any 
of my girls to join this army of incompetent hang- 
ers-on and make-believes. And now, if you are 
ready to become conscientious, honest, news- 
paper workers, I will deal with something beside 
negatives, and tell you what you must do. 



NEWSPAPER WORKERS {continued} 

T\ ND now, my girl with newspaper ambitions, 
£*• what have I to say to you ? 

A good deal, if only I can say it within the 
allotted space. Having made up your mind that 
the work is not easy, but that it is exacting and 
insistent, being assured that although you may 
make a comfortable living you will not make your 
fortune, and knowing perfectly that your per- 
sonality is to be swallowed up in the paper for 
which nevertheless you are willing to do your 
best work, you are ready to hear me, and I hope 
will listen with the feeling that what I say is true, 
and that it is for your best good. 

You must, of course, possess the ability to write 
well, that is,to express yourself in good English, 
free from all redundancies, with clearness and 
conciseness. Fine writing is not wanted ; by "fine 
writing," I mean the tendency to the use of ex- 
cessive metaphor, flowery language, and long 
words of a foreign extraction. It may not be 
easy for you to believe — but you will agree with 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

me after a few trials — that the simplest mode of 
expression, that which is elegant and refined in 
its simplicity, is the most difficult of attainment. 
If you watch yourself, you will find that the 
tendency is to amplification and redundancy of ex- 
pression, rather than to simple conciseness. You 
would learn the lesson very quickly could you be 
an invisible listener to the criticism of the " desk 
editor/* on a piece of work over which you had 
spent much time, and of which you felt very 
proud. Doubtless every dash of his relentless 
blue pencil through lines over which you had 
toiled and which had given you most exquisite 
satisfaction as you read and reread them, would 
give you strange pain. You would stand and 
writhe in mental agony to hear all this brain labor 
of yours characterized as "gush," in a tone of un- 
mistakable contempt. But you would most cer- 
tainly grasp the idea that what the paper wants is 
lucid statement, a clear bit of description, and an 
idea understandingly presented. Mind, I am not 
advocating careless work or work without thought, 
but the work which has to be most carefully done, 
and so well written that no one can find fault with 
either the essence of it, or the mechanical con- 
struction. 

To be a successful newspaper woman, and by 
that I mean one that is versatile, and can be put 



NEWSPAPER WORKERS— Continued 

to do work of any kind on any topic, one must 
be fairly well-read, must be up in historical sub- 
jects, must have some ideas about the move- 
ments of the time, and must be quick to catch 
the spirit of things. I know many well-read, 
highly-educated women, whose ideas are worth a 
very great deal, but who would never make good 
newspaper workers, simply because they never 
can be made to have any idea of relative values 
of things. They do not know how to take the pub- 
lic pulse ; they have no genius for selection ; 
and so while they are valuable friends for news- 
paper workers to have, who can learn much from 
them and take the available knowledge which they 
are usually ready to give, they can do no practical 
work themselves. You know, I dare say, from 
experiences of your own, that it is not always the 
person who knows the most who can best im- 
part information. One must know how to give 
out, as well as to take in, to make a good teacher, 
and the same qualities, in a great degree, are 
necessary to make a good newspaper woman. 

It requires good physical as well as good mental 
endowment, to make a career successful. No 
one who has not a good constitution, unimpaired 
health, and a perfect nervous system, should ever 
think for a moment of entering this profession. 
Even all this is very likely to be thoroughly 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

tested if one enters the rank and file of the 
workers, and is held by office requirements and 
rules. In no profession does one have so much 
to meet in the way of physical disadvantage as in 
this. No matter what the weather may be, if a 
piece of news is needed, it has to be got. Papers, 
especially the dailies, don't wait on the weather 
clerk's convenience, they " do " in spite of him. 
Often there is a great irregularity in eating ; hours 
of labor are uncertain. You are at the behest of 
others, and you must always be ready to respond. 
I consider it only right to put this all before you, 
for it is better to know that there is a "seamy" 
side to things, before you undertake the work, 
than to fancy it all smooth and even before you 
begin, and find out your mistake afterwards. 

But if you have splendid health and no nerves; 
if you are well equipped mentally; if you are am- 
bitious to learn your profession, and willing to 
begin with the alphabet of it ; if you will under- 
stand that your remuneration will be small at first, 
and that severe economy will be necessary in or- 
der to get on ; if you are free from the nonsense 
which possesses so many girls, then you may un- 
dertake the work, and feel sure that there is no 
more delightful profession in the world, nor one 
in which you may succeed better than in this of 
newspaper making. 



NEWSPAPER WORKERS— Continued 

In this paper I am not considering the literary 
worker, she who writes for magazines or story pa- 
pers ; nor the one who, in the shelter of her own 
home, writes letters for daily papers. I mean the 
young woman who goes into the newspaper office, 
has a desk there, " takes assignments," and goes 
out and attends to them ; going to her work as 
the young men go to theirs, and working side by 
side with them. 

I believe in beginning at the very beginning of 
things. You may be a little inclined to turn up 
your nose at being sent to describe a store win- 
dow, or to make a paragraph about a removal. 
But it is all in the way of education, and when 
your superior officer, your city editor, finds that 
you do the small things understandingly, you will 
be given larger things to do, and it rests with your- 
self to make your work valuable, and in this way 
to advance your own position. The trouble is, so 
few are willing to begin at the beginning ; they 
want to strike in somewhere along in the middle, 
or they will make a bound for the very top — and 
often come down quite outside the bounds of the 
profession. 

I have in mind a young women with " journal- 
istic " — mark the word — aspirations. She had had 
little or no experience, but she made up her mind 
to begin as art or musical critic. She found all 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

such places occupied, but she didn't see why the 
people who had grown up to the knowledge of the 
work, and were of value to their papers, shouldn't 
step aside and give her a chance. With the inso- 
lence of inexperienced and uninstructed youth, 
she really thought that her claim was the greater, 
because she was "new and fresh " — very fresh, if 
one may drop into newspaper slang — and that 
those people who had the wisdom born of experi- 
ence should be put one side in favor of her youth. 
She was quite indignant because it was suggested 
that she win her place by showing her ability to 
do any kind of newspaper work first. Now a girl 
like that will not ever become the good newspa- 
per woman ; she never will gain the position she 
desires. While she is standing outside with folded 
hands, waiting for somebody to die or resign and 
so leave an opening for her, another woman, or a 
man, maybe is fitting for the place which will be 
hers or his because he has won it. Positions don't 
come by way of legacy in a newspaper office, I as- 
sure you. 

Having once obtained the chance to make a 
trial of your powers, it depends upon you to make 
the trial a success, and your position is permanent. 
In the first place do everything as well as you 
can. Put as much good work into a report of 
the most trifling nature, as you would into an 



NEWSPAPER WORKERS— Continued 

important editorial. Carry your conscience with 
you all the way along. Never let any feeling of 
private pique or private personal interest enter 
your work. You are a part of the paper which 
you represent, and you must give your work all 
the dignity and impartiality that belongs to the 
paper. There is nothing a good editor resents so 
quickly as the feeling that any member of his staff 
is using the position occupied as a means of car- 
rying out private schemes, whether it be of ad- 
vancing an interest or pulling down a reputation. 
You must be above small prejudices and personal 
pique in your professional career, no matter how 
much you may indulge in them in your private 
capacity. 

Above all things do not try to enhance your 
own interests by writing about yourself and your 
own affairs and accomplishment in any paper 
with which you are connected. There is nothing 
which so quickly opens a person to ridicule as the 
habit of constantly writing about herself. Some 
persons think this fame. It is simply the most 
palpable and laughable kind of self-laudation. 
The editors who allow any personality of this 
kind are few ; it is often seemingly allowed when 
really it is overlooked and escapes the editor's no- 
tice. It ought never to be allowed, and no girl 
should show such a lack of good taste as to allow 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

herself to make this very pitiful bid for noto- 
riety. 

In regard to remuneration, which is what every 
possible worker wishes to know about,, it will be 
found to be much less than is generally imagined. 
There have been so many sensational stories writ- 
ten concerning the money earned by writing that 
hopes are very high. But here the truth is to be 
told — the number of women who are earning less 
than one thousand dollars a year is very much 
greater than those who are earning that amount. 
A girl has to work some time, unless she has an 
unexpected piece of good fortune, before she will 
earn as much money as a school-teacher, and she 
will work all the time — with a possible two-weeks 
vacation — instead of having the long vacations 
and the "off " days which the teacher has. The 
newspaper women of Boston who earn one thou- 
sand dollars a year and over may be counted on 
the fingers of one hand, and all of them are 
women who have served a long apprenticeship — 
none less than ten years, the most even a longer 
one. 

And still, to the girl with the true newspaper 
instinct, and with health, ability and high princi- 
ple, I would say, choose as your profession this, 
the best of all, and you will find your place if 
you seek it honestly, industriously, modestly and 



NEWSPAPER WORKERS— Continued 

conscientiously. It is a work that pays you for the 
doing, not only in the money you earn, but in the 
pleasure and profit you gain from it, so you un- 
dertake it in the right spirit, and by the right 
methods. 

I speak to you out of twenty years of experi- 
ence, so I feel that I speak "by the book." 



VI 

STENOGRAPHERS AND TYPEWRITERS 

TTJITHIN a few years a new industry has sprung 
**** up which has proven very attractive to a 
large number of young women, who have turned to 
it as a pleasant means of earning a livelihood. I 
mean stenography, or shorthand, and typewriting. 
Perhaps it would be better to speak of these as 
two occupations, rather than as one ; for although 
it follows, almost as a matter of course, that the 
stenographer uses a typewriter when she writes 
out her notes, it does not equally follow that 
every girl who uses a typewriter is also a stenog- 
rapher. It is better for her if she is, as she will 
be more accurate when working from dictation, 
although it doesn't matter if she is only a copyist. 
The great danger with this, as with so many 
other new vocations, is that it will become over- 
crowded, and as a consequence the pay will be 
diminished. It is one of the laws of political as 
well as of social economy that, if the supply is in ex- 
cess of demand, the pay for the work is lessened. 
I think you can all understand this without any 



5 TENOGRA PHERS— TTPE WRITERS 

difficulty. And you may feel that you know one 
of the underlying principles of political economy ; 
that bugbear that you hear talked about so much. 
Nothing shows so plainly the number of 
women and girls who either need to earn money, 
because they must be breadwinners, or who want 
to earn it in order to be independent, as the rush 
to take up any new industry that is offered. There 
is no thought of fitness for the work ; the idea is 
simply that of getting employment that shall pay. 
The idea of special preparation does not occur to 
the majority of young women who undertake 
work of any kind, except, of course, a profession, 
where one cannot get on without work beforehand, 
and careful study. And right here is found one 
of the reasons why women are so seldom advanced 
in their position. They do not take up the work 
with the earnestness that men do ; it is more 
often than not, a temporary makeshift ; a some- 
thing that must be done to bridge over a 
certain time of waiting, usually the time that 
elapses between school and marriage. It is not 
regarded as a permanent thing, and the girl 
very openly says that she accepts a position of 
the kind only until such time as the coveted po- 
sition of wife is open to her. Now, in one way 
that is all right and natural. There is no one in 
the list of employments, in all that come to a 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

woman's hand to do, so important or beautiful as 
that of making the home. But it must come nat- 
urally, and it must not be too openly anticipated. 
The work, meanwhile, must be just as faithfully 
done, as much heart and brain put into it, as if 
one expected to do it forever. It makes the way 
easier for other women who have to follow in some 
foot-path of toil, and it adds to the self-respect of 
the worker, as well as to her value to her em- 
ployers. So, while I would not have you look 
lightly upon the most royal gift that can come 
into your life, neither would I have you stand in 
an attitude of waiting expectancy, but go on in a 
dignified fashion, rounding out your life in every 
way, until the great glory of perfected woman- 
hood comes into your life ; then take it, feeling 
that it is yours by divine right. 

Stenography is, in truth, a profession. It requires 
hard study and long practice to make one profi- 
cient. It is not easily acquired, and it is really a 
great memory test. Experienced stenographers 
say that two years is a reasonable time in which 
one may expect to work fairly well, after beginning 
study. To be sure, there will be work that one 
may do in less time, but it is not safe to attempt 
very long pieces of work — except, of course, for 
practice — in a much less time. To be sure, some 
persons learn more readily than others, but I am 



STENOGRAPHERS— TYPE WRITERS 

speaking now of the average pupil. Now type- 
writing, which is a purely mechanical labor, can 
be learned in a few days ; and it is only a ques- 
tion of practice when one may become an expert. 
As I have said, not all typewriters are stenog- 
raphers ; and in some cases there is no need that 
they should be. I know one young woman who 
can write from dictation, on the typewriter, as fast 
as anyone can dictate, and not once in a hundred 
times miss a word, or make a mistake. She works 
entirely from dictation, and she has a salary of 
fifteen dollars a week. She considers this good 
pay. There are times during the year, when, if 
she were not steadily employed, but worked " by 
the piece," she could make much more money 
during a week, but when the unemployed weeks 
and the dull weeks are taken into consideration, 
she really would average no more a year than she 
does under the present arrangement, and possibly 
not so much. At any event, she feels much bet- 
ter satisfied to know that she has a fixed sum upon 
which to depend, than to feel the anxiety, which one 
cannot help feeling whose employment, and con- 
sequent income, is more or less spasmodic. Right 
here let me say that this salary is considered large. 
A bright young woman, who is an expert stenog- 
rapher and typewriter, tells me that the number 
of girls who get less than ten dollars a week is 



Bl/SINBSS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

larger than those who get even that sum. Eight, 
nine, and ten dollars a week are the most frequent 
wages, while the girl who gets steady occupation at 
twelve, fourteen and fifteen, feels that she is, in- 
deed, in luck, and that her fortunate star is in the 
ascendant. This young woman herself gets fifteen 
dollars a week, but she has a very important and 
onerous position as confidential clerk in a large 
newspaper office. You can see, at once, that large 
intelligence, with information, and clear common 
sense, are needed. Both the young women of whom 
I have spoken are more than ordinarily well edu- 
cated. They are good French and German 
scholars, know something of the classics, and have 
a good knowledge of English literature and his- 
tory. And I wonder if you girls, who have an 
idea of taking up either one or both of these 
branches as a means of livelihood, understand 
how necessary a knowledge of history and litera- 
ture is to you. The better informed you are on 
these topics, the wider will be your opportunity. 
A gentleman who had been engaged on a special 
piece of literature, in which he employed a type- 
writer, said to me that he had no idea of the 
difference of attainment in young women who did 
this work until he had this experience. When he 
began he employed a young woman who had been 
recommended to him quite highly. In some 



STENOGRAPHERS— TYPEWRITERS 

respects she was very good. She was accurate in 
following him, but she was not a good speller, 
and she never knew if her employer made a mis- 
take in date or event, as will sometimes happen to 
even the most careful. He had to revise her 
work carefully, and take out everything of which 
he was not altogether certain. While the work 
was in progress she was taken ill, and she sent 
him a substitute. He says that her illness was 
his salvation. The substitute went far ahead of 
her predecessor. She was quick and alert ; not 
only did she write rapidly, but she was ready to 
challenge mis-statements, and she often made the 
suggestion that gave a needed point. " It was a 
delight to work with her," said the gentleman, 
" and when the work was done, I paid her more 
than she asked, for I felt if the first one had 
earned that sum of money, surely this one had 
earned much more." 

I asked one of my typewriting girls some 
questions, and I am going to give you her own 
words to me. She has been in the work some 
time, and has occupied her present position over 
two years and is very highly valued by her 
employers. 

" Tell you about typewriting? Certainly. 
Is it a good business for a girl? Well, that de- 
pends. You see it must be a good girl for the 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

business, in order to make it a good business for 
the girl. There are the two sides of the matter. 
There must be natural qualifications, else the girl 
will not succeed. You don't expect every man to 
make a good doctor, or minister, or lawyer, or 
newspaper man, do you? Certainly you don't. 
Every man cannot succeed as a stenographer or a 
typewriter ; neither can every woman. It re- 
quires a good memory, an ability to spell well, 
a knowledge of the rules of grammar and rhetoric, 
a generally good education, and by that I mean 
an understanding of affairs and a knowledge 
of events, especially historical, a quick eye 
and hand and no nerves. You see the list 
of requirements is a long one, and each one is 
imperative. Many girls are attracted to the work 
because they think it a pleasant way of earning 
money, and because it seems a step in advance of 
so many other things ; a girl, for instance, would 
rather say that she is a typewriter than that 
she sews in a shop. It is one of the class of in- 
telligent professions that presupposes a certain 
amount of education. Not all who begin the 
study carry it through — this refers particularly to 
stenography — and many who do carry it through, 
getting to the end of the course some way or other, 
do not make it available after they finish. The fault 
is not in the method by which they were taught, 



STENOGRAPHERS— TYPE WRITERS 

but in themselves ; they haven't the requisites. 
When they come to be put to practical work, 
they make sad failures. 

I am always sorry for these girls ; I only wish 
they could have known their unfitness before 
spending time and money in study. Another im- 
portant quality needed, especially if one takes an 
office position, is discretion. Naturally, one hears 
a great deal about people, and unavoidably learns 
much, not only of their character, but of their 
private affairs, and it should be understood that 
this knowledge is to be put out of the mind as 
speedily as possible. Why, a stenographer could 
make no end of trouble for individuals if she were 
not discreet. Some people seem to regard a 
confidential clerk as a sort of receptacle into 
which they may pour their real opinions about 
everybody with whom they are connected in a 
business way. When you come to think of it, 
isn't it queer that a man should talk in so 
unguarded a manner concerning anyone with 
whom he has business relations? I suppose he 
realizes that he trusts certain knowledge of his 
own affairs to a confidential clerk, and he must of 
necessity believe in her integrity and honor. So 
you can easily see how necessary discretion is. 
I'm not sure but that I should have named it first 
in degree of importance." 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

I think these words from one of the workers 
will be better than all the theoretical words I could 
give you. I will add just a few words given me 
by Mrs. Isabel C. Barrows, one of the most expert 
stenographers in the country. She is the woman 
who took down a speech of Carl Schurz, delivered 
in German, in English shorthand — one of the 
most wonderful pieces of stenographic work ever 
done by man or woman. She is also a teacher of 
stenography, in the little time left from her edi- 
torial duties. She says the reason why so many 
women fail is that they have not acquired, as a 
rule, the habit of practical thought as men have. 
The whole plan of woman's education, up to the 
present time, has been insufficient and superficial, 
while men have been trained in harder schools 
and more thorough methods. As a consequence, 
the masculine thought-habit is better developed, 
and the qualities most needed in this special work 
are more common in man than in woman. This 
is not the fault of women so much as it has been 
the misfortune of their training. That all of them 
have not suffered from this wrong method is 
proved by the good work done by so many. 

The great trouble is, as I hinted in the be- 
ginning, that so many girls, impelled by the suc- 
cess of the few, which has become traditional, 
rush into the work without stopping to consider 



STENOGRAPHERS— TTPE WRITERS 

whether or not they are fitted for it. It is, as my 
typewriting girl said, an idea that pleases them, 
and they take up the business without consider- 
ing their capacity. But for those who succeed, it 
is a pleasant employment, and as things go, 
fairly remunerative. 



VII 

PRESERVES AND PICKLES 

rT7HE stay-at-home girl is thinking by this time, 
no doubt, that she should have a little atten- 
tion paid to her and her special needs, so I will 
devote a few pages to her now. I cannot tell you 
how strongly this girl, or woman — for sometimes 
it is the mother of a family upon whom the burden 
of breadwinning rests — appeals to me. She is 
hampered by so many circumstances ; she cannot 
go out into the world to do her work, for duty 
holds her where she is, and there she must stay. 
Consequently her choice of occupations is circum- 
scribed ; she can do only what comes to her to be 
done. 

The suggestion I am going to make to her is 
embodied in the personal experience of one 
woman. Many, I think, may draw counsel and 
help from the story. But I want to say just this 
first : look over your stock of accomplishment and 
see what you can do best, and try to turn that to 
your advantage ; see if you cannot make it pay 



PRESERVES AND PICKLES 

you something. You will take notice that I say ac- 
complishment, and not accomplishments. I mean 
literally the something that you have done and 
done well, no matter how small or humble it may 
be, not the showy veneer that passes current, under 
the name of "the accomplishments." No; I in- 
sist upon the literal definition of the word in this 
case. 

A lady whom I know tells the story of a friend 
of hers who was unexpectedly left in a position 
where self-support became imperative. For a 
time she was bewildered. She could play the 
piano, she could paint, both somewhat better 
than well ; she was a graceful letter writer, with a 
pleasing knack of expression that some of her 
friends took for talent. But she could make none 
of these " accomplishments" available. She could 
not obtain pupils enough to pay her either for 
her time or her trouble, and the editors of news- 
papers and magazines did not find the peculiar 
charm about her work that her friends declared it 
possessed. She was almost at her wits' ends, and 
was really beginning to think that there was no 
place in the world for her, when she suddenly 
found her vocation. And what do you think it 
was? Simply this: frying potatoes. Humble 
enough, wasn't it? and unpromising. But a good 
deal came of it. She could fry potatoes, in the 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

special fashion called " Saratoga chips/' deliciously, 
and among her own friends her fried potatoes were 
quite famous. One day it occurred to her to take 
orders for them, and see what she could do. Her 
friends were glad to get her delicious fried 
potatoes, and she had very soon a small but pay- 
ing business. Then her fame went out into the 
large city near by, and she supplied families there. 
The business increased so that she was obliged to 
take in assistants, and she is now on the high road 
to prosperity, just because she could do one 
thing, though a very simple one — better than her 
neighbors. Now, I don't for a moment suppose 
that every woman who wishes to earn her living 
at home is going to preparing " Saratoga chips" 
for the market. I tell this only to show you what 
may be done when a person has one thing in 
which she can excel others. 

Nor was it the story I started to tell you ; it 
came along naturally, in passing, and was so to 
the point that I could not refrain from telling it. 

My especial story is for the young woman who 
lives in the country, and who has an opportunity 
to get at berries, and small fruits ; perhaps lives on 
a farm where they are raised, or may be, with work 
and care. The woman I am going to tell her of, 
lives on a pretty little "home farm," of a few 
acres, just outside the busy city of Pawtucket in 



PRESERVES AND PICKLES 

Rhode Island, and not far from Providence. She 
had been a bookkeeper in one of the Pawtucket 
mills, at a large salary, and had married and 
settled down on the home farm. Accustomed as 
she was to a busy life, and above all to being the 
mistress of a pocketbook of her own, she soon 
found herself missing it, and wishing that she had 
something to do. Like the woman with the 
" Saratoga chips," she found her vocation quite 
by accident. Her mother had been a notable 
New England housewife, whose cooking, and 
above all, whose pickle and preserve-making, were 
famous in the neighborhood. Her daughter had 
inherited this peculiar ability, and was as proud 
of her store closet as her mother had been before 
her. It happened, one autumn day, as she was 
making a special kind of pickle, which was liked 
by all the friends who had the good fortune to 
taste it, one of her neighbors came in to call. She 
began comment upon the pickles, bewailing her 
own ill-luck in making them, and ended by saying 
how she did wish that it was possible to obtain 
some. It was at that instant the money-making 
idea came into Mrs. Thornton's head. 

" I will make some for you," she said. 

11 You !" replied her friend. 

■'Yes; why not? You want pickles, I want 
occupation." 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOB GIRLS 

And so the thing was settled, and so soon as 
others heard that she was willing to undertake 
the work they came to her with orders, and she 
found plenty of pickling to do. Then came re- 
quests for catsups, sauces and relishes, and she 
filled those orders. 

Her neighborhood success set her to thinking 
seriously, and during the winter she laid her 
plans. She saw friends in Providence and took 
orders for jellies, preserves, pickles and things of 
a like nature, and she made arrangements with 
the Woman's Exchange to send her any orders 
they might get, and also to take what she might 
have to spare on sale at their rooms. As soon as 
the spring opened she began her work. She 
looked after her strawberry beds and her rasp- 
berry and blackberry vines. She looked to see 
that her fruit trees were in condition. She tended 
her cucumber vines and her tomato plants. Her 
garden had come to mean something more than 
merely the appendage to the family comfort ; 
it was to be the basis of supplies for the new 
business. 

All summer she worked ; as the fruit ripened 
she " put it up." The strawberries, most delicate 
of all fruits, she picked herself, hulling as she 
picked, so that they need be handled but the 
once, and taking great care that they should not 



PRESERVES AND PICKLES 

be crushed. Currants she allowed others to pick 
for her, and so with the hardier fruits that would not 
be harmed by the handling. She used the greatest 
care in making her jellies and her preserves, and 
the results were most satisfactory. From the time 
the first fruit ripened, until the last pickles were 
made in the early autumn, she was constantly 
employed. It proved to be a remunerative em- 
ployment. The second year her business increased, 
and now she has all she can do. She might en- 
large it, but she does not care to undertake to do 
any more than she can do herself, as she fears 
that if anyone undertook it with her, the results 
would be less satisfactory than they are. Like a 
sensible woman, she concludes that enough is as 
good as more, and she makes sufficient money 
during the busy months to keep her all the year 
through, and let her do what she likes in the way 
of improvement of her place, of journeying about 
in her leisure season, and of having many things 
in the way of luxury that otherwise she would 
have to go without. To be sure, with her, the 
work was not a real necessity ; but the result would 
have been the same if it had been. She had, too, 
the advantage of owning the place, but there are 
other women who have the same advantage. 
There is many a woman living in the country 
who, although not the owner of a farm, has a 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

garden spot which she might devote to the 
growth of small fruits, and turn these into money 
by making the preserves and jellies that will find 
a ready market at good prices. 

Mrs. Hinckley, in Dorchester, just outside of 
Boston, does a large business. She has regular 
private customers whom she supplies by order 
every year, and the Women's Educational and 
Industrial Union takes all she can spare from her 
private customers, and finds a ready sale for it. 
Another woman in Cambridge does precisely the 
same thing. 

Of course, not everyone who lives in the country 
even, can do this. One must have patience, and 
the natural aptitude for cooking, to be successful 
in this business. It never follows that anyone 
can do a thing well, simply by wishing to do it, 
but there are enough who can do just this thing 
well, to make it worth their trying. It is not very 
difficult to find customers ; the women who are 
never successful in putting up fruits will gladly 
avail themselves of the skill of those who can. 
Nearly everyone, too, has friends in town or city, 
who will be glad of the genuine country fruits, 
well prepared, the fruit fresh, the sugar good, and 
with the home care that makes the difference be- 
tween the work well done with good results, or 
carelessly done with indifferent results. Then, 



PRESERVES AND PICKLES 

too, the business does not last all the year round, 
and there is well-earned leisure for study and other 
work. It is absorbing while it does last, and it 
takes the time in the summer, the pleasant part of 
the year, when one possibly feels the least like 
exertion. But one is willing to work to reap such 
results. It is a good plan, if one lives near a large 
town, to make an arrangement with some leading 
store to keep the goods on sale, if one has more than 
is needed to fill private orders. People in towns 
buy preserves and canned fruits in quantities from 
the stores ; would they not prefer, if they knew it 
was obtainable, the carefully prepared home pre- 
serve, rather than that prepared in bulk at some 
factory, and put up by wholesale in haphazard 
fashion? Of course they would. 



VIII 

GUIDES AND SHOPPERS 

71 BOUT a year ago people coming home from 
/gp- Europe had a good deal to say about the 
" lady guides " of London. It seems that some 
bright, educated women, feeling the need of earn- 
ing money, had the idea of forming an association 
of lady guides, whose business it should be to show 
strangers, particularly ladies, about London and 
and its suburbs, extending their duties even to 
remote points if desired, although the field which 
they particularly undertook to cover was the city 
itself. The idea proved a most happy one, and 
the women connected with it speedily had all 
they could do. In these days of electricity it takes 
an idea but a short time to travel ; and so eager 
are women for all the new employments that are 
opened to them that they no sooner hear of any 
experiment in an industrial line than they go 
ahead to try it for themselves. The work in 
London was reported in New York, when straight- 
way it was taken up there, and an association 
formed which is called " The New York Ladies' 
Guide and Chaperon Bureau/' It has issued 



GUIDES AND SHOPPERS 

a circular which it is sending about, and I am go- 
ing to quote from it so as to give the girls some 
notion of the work. It is even more far-reaching 
than the one in London, and has added quite a 
number of new features. The managers of the 
bureau are Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Carolyn Faville 
Ober, and they have an office at No. 24 Union 
Square, East. The circular informs the public 
that their guides have a practical knowledge of the 
history of all important places of interest, and 
being armed with the association's badge and cre- 
dentials, receive a more cordial recognition than 
the mere stranger. From these advantages, and 
from the varied experience among shops of all 
kinds, the benefit to be derived is self-evident. 
The circular goes on to say : 

" Our chaperons, selected with the utmost care, 
place at the disposal of young ladies, whose moth- 
ers or guardians are unable to accompany them, 
the facilities so often required of going to the the- 
ater or concert. Young ladies are escorted from 
and to their homes; or school children to and 
from school. 

" We will send out home or foreign excursion 
parties of ladies under the care of experienced 
chaperons, who will attend to all ordinary and 
necessary details. 

"We undertake to furnish choice seats for all 
'7 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

places of amusement, to send carriages whenever 
desired, to direct permanent or transient guests 
to, or engage rooms at, the best hotels and 
boarding houses ; to secure railway and steam- 
boat tickets and berths, to meet at the depot 
strangers coming to the city, and to make, when 
required, all arrangements for their comfort dur- 
ing their stay. 

" The bureau can be used to great advantage 
by those living in the suburbs, expecting friends 
whom it is desirable they should meet. By tele- 
phoning to the bureau, a chaperon can be sent 
who will conduct the visitor from one station to 
another, and save time and money for the patron 
without discourtesy to her friend. 

" There are many ladies living out of New York, 
who wish to make purchases here, but are unable, 
or find it inconvenient, to come to the city. For 
such we shall be glad to execute with promptness 
and dispatch shopping orders, large or small ; and 
consequent on arrangements made we are able, 
with great advantage to our patrons, to select any 
kind of musical instrument. 

"A new and important feature of our work is 
to provide lady experts to assist in, or take full 
charge of, the interior decoration of a house ; 
furnishing it throughout ; selecting books for li- 
braries, etc. 



GUIDES AND SHOPPERS 

"Attention is paid to the receipt and forward- 
ing ofmail matter. 

" Elocutionists, lady pianists and singers sup- 
plied for entertainments. 

" Suburban ladies who desire to change their 
toilets for city entertainments can make use of 
our rooms. 

"There is no aid or service that one woman 
may be able or required to render or perform 
for another, that will not be cheerfully under- 
taken, and the best efforts made by us to give sat- 
isfaction. 

" To make the bureau really of service, charges 
will be moderate ; the following being the sched- 
ule of charges: 

11 Guides for shopping and sight-seeing, accord- 
ing to competency, $3.00 to $3.50 and $4.00 per 
day. 

" Guides who will act as interpreters, 50 cents 
to $1.00 a day additional. 

" Deductions made for weekly engagements. 

11 Chaperonage to the theater, $1.00. 

11 Chaperonage of children to and from school, 
per week, $2.50. 

"Directing to boarding house, 25 cents. 

" Securing room and board, 75 cents. 

" Securing seats for the theater for one or more, 
50 cents. 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

" Use of room for changing toilet, meeting 
dressmaker, etc., 50 cents. 

u Physicians and lawyers recommended, 50 
cents. 

" Typewriting, 5 cents per folio. 

" Shopping orders executed for 5 per cent, on 
the amount purchased. 

" Meeting ladies at station, accompanying young 
ladies and children, or any brief service, will be 
charged at the rate of 40 cents an hour. 

" Carriages procured, railway, steamship and 
berth tickets secured, and general information 
given, free of charge." 

This circular is issued by an association ; but 
the rules and the scope of work may give a hint 
to some young woman of what she herself may 
do. She might not be able to undertake so much, 
but she could select what she could do. Yet not 
every young woman can undertake the task of en- 
tertaining people, for this is practically what a 
guide must do. There are certain indispensable 
requisites. In the first place, one must be well- 
educated, able to talk well, understanding all the 
history of places which she is to show. She must 
be well-bred and courteous, and she must have 
some knowledge of human nature. She must 
possess kindliness and tact. Meeting many dif- 
ferent kinds of people she will need all these 



GUIDES AND SHOPPERS 

qualifications. If she is in a large city she must 
know what is going on at the various theaters and 
places of amusements, so as to know just where 
to take her party. She must know the picture 
galleries, keep run of the art exhibitions, and she 
must know the best shops for bargains. All this 
a bright, quick city woman may learn, and she 
may keep her knowledge at her fingers' ends. 

Having these requisites, and being sure also 
that she has a fund of cheeriness and good tem- 
per, and is ready to meet any emergencies that 
may arise, she may start on her work. Of course, 
she must find a way to gain patronage. She 
would do well to make friends with the leading 
hotel people, and the best of the shopkeepers. 
Let her have cards prepared, stating what she is 
ready to do, giving as references the name of her 
clergyman, and one or two men or women whose 
names will carry weight. Let her leave these 
cards at the hotels, and let her also insert an ad- 
vertisement in the leading papers. Then she 
should be at the various hotels at certain stipu- 
lated hours to see if anyone needs her. All this 
time friends are speaking for her, and if she has 
any acquaintances in outlying cities, she has asked 
them to recommend their friends to her care 
while in town. In this way it will not take long 
to work up a good business. Two or three young 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

women might act together, and find enough to do. 
Strangers are always coming from all over the 
country to the various cities. Men bring their 
wives and daughters when they take a business 
trip, and they are obliged to go about by them- 
selves while the husband and father is transacting 
business, or to stay in the hotel waiting until 
he can return to them and take them about. Now 
a competent and agreeable lady guide would be a 
" perfect blessing " to a party of this kind. All 
the time could be well employed, they would see 
just the things that are best worth seeing, and the 
head of the family would have freedom for his 
business duties, and not be concerned for the 
welfare of his family. Everybody would be 
pleased, and the guide make her money easily. 

It should not need to be said, but alas! the 
necessity does exist for saying it, the guide must 
take care to be well and quietly dressed. She 
must look and be the refined gracious woman who 
for the time is acting the part of hostess, and she 
must remember that to be anything less than 
refined in her outward appearance would be an 
insult to her guest, or to the person who for 
the time occupies the position of guest. 

A dark cloth gown, tailor-made, with wrap to 
suit, and bonnet to match, nice linen, gloves and 
boots, and you are ready. Wear a bonnet rather 



GUIDES AND SHOPPERS 

than a hat, for it is in better keeping both with 
your costume and your employment. A bonnet 
is always ladylike, while there is an informality 
about a hat that is not appropriate to the occasion. 
Your prices you can take from the circular that I 
have given you. It is a fair list. Of course it is 
understood that your party pays your expenses, 
the car fares, lunches, etc. That is, she may 
allow you to do it, but you must keep the ac- 
count and settle the expense at the end of the 
day. 

As you will not, probably, be employed as guide 
constantly, you can add to your duties those of 
shopping on commission. In this your friends 
outside the city will be of great service to you. 
They may influence people to send to you, and 
thus enlarge your business constantly. When 
you are well established you may be able to make 
such terms with the leading houses as will induce 
them to give you a commission on sales, in addition 
to the commission you receive from the shoppers, 
and in this way you may make your income from 
both sides. Of course, the houses would not do 
this until they found your business was a valuable 
one ; unless, indeed, you should happen to know 
the heads of the firm, and they feel willing to do 
this for you to help you establish yourself. 

I know one woman who makes a good income 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

by shopping on commission, and doing nothing 
else. She not only shops for out-of-town people, 
but she has a set of families in town for whom she 
shops. She goes every morning to their houses, 
receives her commissions, and goes out to fill 
them. In this case she is paid a certain salary, 
because she must report every morning for duty 
whether there is anything to be done or not. 
Each family pays a small stated sum — two dollars 
or two dollars and fifty cents a week and car 
fares — and with several families to serve this 
makes a good income. 

You will understand that the successful shop- 
per must be a person of taste, must know the 
very latest fads and notions, and must possess 
good judgment in selection, and an artistic eye in 
matching. 



IX 

PROFESSIONAL MENDERS 

IT is time to turn again to that class of workers 
who do not want, or cannot take, steady em- 
ployment away from home. The plan that I am 
going to suggest may mean absence from one's 
household a few hours at a time, but so much may 
be done at home that the other hours do not 
really count. The work is a homely one, but it 
is extremely useful, and is in the interest of 
economy. The stock in trade is a capacious work- 
basket with scissors, thimble, thread, silk and 
cotton tape, buttons, all kinds and sizes, and all 
the other little appliances that naturally belong 
to such a basket, deft fingers, and an unlimited 
stock of patience. With these at hand, you may 
set yourself up in business as a professional 
mender, and if you manage it properly, you will 
soon have a large class of customers and plenty 
to do. 

It was Miss Josephine Jenkins who wrote in the 
Boston Herald: 

" With all the wish in the world to earn money, women 
let many ways of doing so escape their notice simply be- 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

cause they are lacking in practical application. Here, for 
instance, is one means b}' which an honest penny, if not an 
entire support, could be obtained : It is to become a 
visiting mender. And what does that signify? ask the im- 
pecunious seeker of fortune. What is the 'visiting mender?' 
Nothing more nor less than an angel with a thimble, and 
who is skillful with the needle, who goes from house to 
house to mend the family stockings, sew on buttons and re- 
pair whatever needs repairing in the week's wash. That is 
the visiting mender, and a much needed individual in hun- 
dreds of households, where the mother would rather pay 
fifty cents for a quick morning's work than to waste her own 
precious time taking stitches. A regular seamstress is, per- 
haps, too expensive, but the visiting mender, deft of hand, 
comes within the possibility of the average household. Any 
lady who understands the art of darning and mending would 
soon find this sort of business paid. Such a vocation may be 
humble, for it does not demand a ' higher education,' but it 
is one to command respect, and would certainly be appre- 
ciated by many women whose own employments give them 
no chance to apply the stitch in time that is believed to save 
nine. Young mothers who would like to keep up with the 
procession, but find the mending basket an obstruction, and 
the gayer butterflies who have no taste for replacing missing 
buttons on their boots and gloves, are some of the people 
who would bless such a visitor as the professional mender." 

Now, Miss Jenkins knew what she was talking 
about ; she knows it by experience, just as I do, 
just as all women do who lead busy lives, and 
have to let some things go because they cannot 
possibly attend to everything in the world. You 
and I both know that bright women may do a 



PROFESSIONAL MENDERS 

good deal, may, in fact, almost achieve the im- 
possible, but there is, after all, a point at which 
they must stop. I remember once looking over 
all my dresses to find one to put on. Something 
was the matter with every one, and the matter 
finally resolved itself into the puzzle, which could 
be made ready to put on with the least outlay of 
time. A friend, who was the Art Critic on one 
of the leading Boston dailies, was waiting for me. 
As she saw my despair deepen, her own feeling 
found expression in words. 

" I would give a good slice out of my salary, 
and so would you,'* she said, " to find a woman 
who would come with scissors and thimble once a 
week, and put us in order. Who wouldn't ask a 
single question, but would go through closets, 
and drawers, and stocking bags, and shoe bags, 
and would mend the holes and sew on the missing 
strings and buttons, replace the bit of frayed 
braid, sew up the rip in the pocket, brush the 
flounces, and make everything ready to put on. 
But such a woman isn't to be found. I have tried 
and I know. I have suggested it to half a dozen 
or more women who have come to me wanting 
something to do, and such a sniff of disdain as I 
receive. They all want to be companions, or 
copyists, or something ' genteel,' until I am so 
tired of them and their mock pretensions that I 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

don't know what to do. They are dying to get 
something to do ; work is a necessity ; they ap- 
peal to my sympathy, and yet when I show the 
work that lies right at their hand, they refuse to 
see it, and make me feel as though I had insulted 
them by the mere proposition/' 

And that has been so much the case. I know 
my friend was right because I have had a like ex- 
perience, and it is the testimony of many other 
women. It is annoying to a busy woman to have 
to stop to sew on the missing button when she is 
in great haste and her work of the utmost impor- 
tance. It is aggravating beyond measure, when 
she is so tired after a day's hard mental labor that 
she can hardly see, when every nerve is quivering 
under the lash of stimulation, to make a longer 
day with the needle in repairing something that 
must be made ready for the next day's wearing. 
Oh ! if the other woman could be found to meet 
this woman's needs. I have not exaggerated ; 
every woman whose days are filled with mental 
labor, will tell you the same story. There is a dis- 
inclination to manual exertion, that becomes posi- 
tive physical pain, after a day that has been so 
wearing alike to brain and nerve. And the worst 
of it is one can never make the rest of the world 
know the absolute torture that she is suffering, at 
the very thought of physical exertion. And it is 



PROFESSIONAL MENDERS 

the help that comes in ways like this, that one is 
so ready to pay for if one can only get it, that 
makes the real rest. 

And there are men that feel this need as well as 
women ; young men who live in boarding houses, 
and have no one to look after their clothing and 
make the needed repairs. They would make a 
good and a willing class of customers ; it could be 
easily arranged that the work for this class could 
be taken to one's home, and then returned when 
it was finished. 

A young woman in New York, who evidently 
took the sensible view of things, already has a very 
good and paying business among just this class of 
persons. She has made her own way, and has been 
very successful. 

I have had one or two women tell me that 
they tried to do this work, but they could not 
get it. 

" How did you try? " I asked them. 

" Oh ! I put an advertisement in the paper, but 
nobody answered it." 

Well, that isn't so very strange. An advertise- 
ment of that sort gets easily lost to sight in the 
midst of so many " wants " as appear in the pa- 
pers. Personal endeavor is what is needed, and 
that was what won for the New York girl of whom 
I have just spoken. Perhaps you would like to 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

know just what she did, and how she did it. You 
know, in this world, we all build our own endeav- 
ors upon the lines of some one else's success. It 
is perfectly natural. Life is, after all, a sort of 
serious game of " follow my leader," and what is 
already done or achieved, it is quite a matter of 
course that someone else tries. And so for the way 
in which the girl I have told you of went to work. 
In the first place she didn't advertise. She got 
some cards printed with her name and address, 
and her business on them. These she took to 
the large stores and gave them herself to the 
clerks, at the same time explaining her project. 
She then said she would call at a stated time for 
the work. Of course, it was an experiment ; she did 
not know how it would succeed, but she felt that 
it was worth the trying. I wish I could remem- 
ber the list of prices that she gave on her card, but 
the only thing I can remember was that the stock- 
ing mending was from five to ten cents a pair, ac- 
cording to the amount to be done. Of course, all 
the prices were small, but the aggregate she 
thought might be good. She came for the bun- 
dles at the promised time, and the very first day 
she had her shopping bag, a good-sized one, much 
more than full, so she had to have a separate par- 
cel made. These she returned at the promised 
time, and the next week she had a still larger 



PROFESSIONAL MENDERS 

quantity, so that she had to have the bundles sent 
by a messenger boy. Her work has increased un- 
til now she has a boy constantly employed to get 
and return the parcels, and has two assistant 
menders. Now, what one woman has done, an- 
other may do, if she will only go to work in the 
right way. 

This occupation, rightly managed, need not be 
an unpleasant one. To one who loves her needle, 
it may be very delightful. The art of mending, 
in our day, is a much neglected one, but it was 
one of which our grandmothers were very proud. 
Fine mending was a species of exquisite needle- 
work, and it ranked with embroidery in nicety of 
detail. The old-time gentlewoman could mend 
anything, from household linen to lace ; she 
darned stockings until it was a delight to see the 
fine stitches, and she set a patch absolutely by the 
thread. The mending basket was an indispensa- 
ble article, and it was always well stocked. Did 
the least bit of wear show itself in the table linen, 
it was taken in hand at once and darned to a new 
strength. Did body linen wear, a patch was set 
in so neatly that the garment never had the ap- 
pearance of an old one. To mend well was an 
accomplishment of which every woman was proud. 
The advent of the sewing machine, while it was 
undoubtedly a great saving of time to many 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

women, did, nevertheless, do more than anything 
to lessen the respect for hand sewing. Still a few 
old-fashioned people have always insisted that 
certain parts of the sewing shall be done by hand, 
so that a few have kept up the practice. In the 
cities the teaching of sewing in the public schools 
has made good needlewomen of the girls who are 
coming now to take their places among the world's 
workers, and with the knowledge of the work has 
come a respect for it, that is one of the most hope- 
ful signs of the times. The girls in the schools 
are taught to mend and repair, as well as to make 
garments, and many of these may find a way to a 
pleasant support through the medium of her little 
shining implement of industry. The mending 
is recommended as something well worth think- 
ing of. 

There are families who need such work done 
for them as well as the army of single men and 
women. Many a tired, overworked mother dreads 
the sight of the weekly mending basket, and 
would be very glad if she could get a few hours' 
help each week from somebody. I have heard 
many a woman say this, but she always ends by 
saying that she can find no one who will do it. 
She can easily get a seamstress or dressmaker by 
the day ; but she can't afford to pay their prices 
for the work she wants. If she could employ 



PROFESSIONAL MENDERS 

somebody by the hour, who would go away when 
her work was done, and go cheerfully because 
somebody else was waiting for her, it would be 
the greatest possible comfort in the world. There 
is the same difficulty here that so often exists ; 
that of getting the employer and the worker to- 
gether. "I know just what I want to do," a 
woman once said to me, after detailing a plan of 
work, "and I also know that there is somebody in 
the world who wants done just what I can do ; 
now, why won't some person set us toward each 
other, so that we may meet?" 

It is hard to answer that puzzle ; but usually 
the only "setting towards" is done by the worker, 
and it must be confessed that sometimes even 
with trying the result is long in coming. But 
there is also another thing, which may partially 
offset the slowness of attainment ; when once suc- 
cess has crowned effort, it is apt to increase, for 
when one gets the first chance, others are sure to 
follow. So in starting in as "visiting mender," or 
as the mender who takes her work home, you 
must recognize the value of the first patron. One 
brings another always, and if your work is done 
well, you will find your patrons increasing. 

18 



X 

REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE 

fERHAPS a recent experience, related by a friend 
who bears " the girls " and their welfare quite 
near her heart, may show why it is that so many 
fail to make a good living in the world as inde- 
pendent workers, and become the grumblers and 
the hangers-on to the skirts of skilled labor. This 
friend had the misfortune to lose the secretary 
who had been with her for some time, and it be- 
came necessary to fill her place. One would think 
that out of the army of waiting and wanting 
women this would have been an easy thing to do; 
but not so did she find it. She wanted a young 
woman who could do typewriting, write from dic- 
tation, copy legibly, and answer business letters. 
" Not a difficult position to fill," do I hear some 
of you say ? Well, so she thought when she be- 
gan her search, and so I thought, too, when she 
told me of her need. But she changed her mind 
before she had been long searching, and I had oc- 
casion to indulge in some serious thinking when 
she gave me the benefit of her experience. 



REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE 

She had interviewed over half a hundred appli- 
cants for the position, but without success. One 
girl had never run a typewriting machine, but 
thought she could learn to use it in time by prac- 
tice; one had been a housekeeper, but had an 
idea she would rather be a private secretary, al- 
though she wasn't much used to writing. But 
the most of them were utterly without an idea 
of w r hat would be the duties, and were hopelessly 
ignorant, not only of those requirements, but 
evidently of every other so far as work was con- 
cerned. 

One young woman came who said she needed 
a position ; she had finished school and wanted 
something to do. She must have it, indeed, as 
her people could not afford to let her be idle. 
She was young, prettily dressed, and had rather 
pleasing manners, and my friend was really in 
hopes that here, at last, she had found what she 
needed. She defined the duties. 

" But I cannot use the typewriter," was the 
first comment. 

" Are you quick to learn?" queried my friend, 
whose interest and sympathy had been awakened. 

"I don't know," was the reply. "I might 
try." 

"Can you write from dictation?" 

" What's that ? " 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

" Can you write if told what to say ? " 

" I don't know ; I never tried/' 

" Can you write a business letter?" 

" What do you mean ? " 

"Well, supposing you were my secretary, and I 
had a letter come from a publisher, asking me if I 
could do a piece of work, and how much I should 
ask for it, and I told you to say that I would do 
it, and gave you the price I should demand, what 
would you say ? " 

" Why, dear me ! I don't know. I never did 
such a thing in my life," was the reply. 

Plainly she would not do as a secretary, but, 
having a soft heart for winsome girls, my friend 
thought perhaps she could help her by giving her 
employment in another direction ; there's always 
enough in a busy woman's household to be done, 
so she said: "Can you sew? Could you make 
some underclothing for me and help my dress- 
maker about my spring dresses? " 

" O, dear, no ! my mother hires all my sewing 
done for me." 

" Well, can you assist about a house? can you 
cook?" 

"O, no! I don't know anything about house- 
work; that is, not much. I set the table sometimes." 

She was given up as a hopeless task, and my 
friend is still looking for a secretary. 



REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE 

Perhaps this may seem exaggerated, but I 
assure you that it is not, and it is only one of sev- 
eral similar experiences. 

And with no better equipment, girls confidently 
seek for places and then wonder that they do not 
get them, or that, having gotten them, they do not 
succeed in keeping them. 

Now, a young man would hardly venture in 
business life without some idea of what he was 
going to do, and he would expect to give some 
time at learning the profession that was to give 
him a livelihood. Why should a girl expect to 
come at once into a position that it would take a 
boy some time and a good deal of work to 
attain ? 

Please don't jump at a wrong conclusion now 
and think that I am making the sweeping asser- 
tion that all girls are unprepared for their work; 
this is a very great mistake. I know that there 
are girls as well prepared as boys, but I know, 
too, that they are the exception rather than the 
rule. Girls do not take the idea of business so 
seriously as boys do. It is not the great thing 
for them ; it is not the life work. And yet it may 
be. No girl can tell when she begins at what 
time she may leave off. And, at any event, to 
make success sure for herself, and the way 
easier for other girls who come after her, 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

she should see to it that she does her work 
with care and with interest. You and I are not 
doing our work solely for ourselves ; there is 
something beyond individual interest, even if we 
refuse to recognize it. Our success or failure is 
not ours alone ; it is that of every other woman 
who shall come after us, working along the lines 
in which we have worked. What we do makes it 
either more difficult or more easy for them. We 
cannot afford to be selfish in our way of regarding 
this question, and to think that it makes no 
difference how we do, it is our loss and gain. If 
it were ours alone, we might ; but it is that of 
every other woman worker. Earnestness and de- 
termination are necessary to success, no matter in 
what line our work may be done. 

If I had been given the opportunity to speak to 
the young girl my friend told me of, I think I 
should have said to her that she would find it 
very hard to find the congenial work to do until 
she had proven that she could do well what came 
to her. If it was the housework assistance to an 
over tired mother she should do that, and in doing 
it cheerfully and well she would find that she was 
ready for the next step, and the way would be 
opened for her to take it. There is really work 
enough in the world to do ; the trouble is to find 
the competent workers 



REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE 

But I started to make a suggestion, and I have 
had so much else to say that the thought almost 
was overlooked. A business that women are 
taking up, and are succeeding well in, i<= that of 
real estate brokerage. It certainly has no features 
that women would find difficult or unpleasant. 
There are. two in Boston vicinity, who are doing 
remarkably well, and I think there are others in 
other cities ; but these two I know personally, and 
I know just how successful they both are. One is 
Mrs. Woelper, of Boston, and the other is Mrs. La 
Coste, of Maiden. Both of them were in other 
business, and came into this gradually, and, from 
the nature of things, inevitably. Mrs. La Coste 
kept a fancy goods store in the city of Maiden, 
but, her health failing, she was obliged to get 
some business that took her out of doors, 
and some friends gave her some houses to 
manage. She sold her own business, and 
managed so successfully with the estates in 
her hands, that others gave her opportunities, and 
now she has all she can do. Mrs. Woelper is 
a Southern woman, born in New Orleans, but of 
Northern parents. Her husband was connected 
with one of the New Orleans papers, and when 
he died she found that she must look out for her- 
self. She was given a position in the post office 
in New Orleans, and she was an expert at 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

deciphering illegible writing, so that her position 
was one of great responsibility. But she could 
not endure the confinement, and all the time her 
heart was going out to New England, the birth- 
place of her ancestors. She had a little property 
in New Orleans, and she managed it so wisely 
that it yielded her a good return. She liked the 
work of looking after it, too, and when finally she 
made up her mind that she would give up her 
position and come North, she also made up her 
mind that she would go into the real estate busi- 
ness. To think and to act were simultaneous, and 
she speedily found herself in Boston, where she 
took an office, and began to advertise. She had 
a few friends, they helped her what they could, 
but the greater part of her work has been done by 
sheer persistent and untiring effort. 

There is a very good story told of her that will 
bear repeating, since I am sure it will be new to 
you all ; and it will prove just what kind of a 
worker she is, and show the spirit which she has 
manifested all the time since she set out in her 
new business. 

It happened during the somewhat dull season 
of two years ago. A gentleman was talking with 
a real estate dealer quite prominent in Boston. 

"And so you say business is dull?" said he. 

"Yes; there doesn't seem to be anyone doing 



REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE 

a thing except ourselves and that fellow Woelper, 
down in the Equitable Building," was the reply. 

" Indeed," said the gentleman, " is that so — by 
the way, do you know 'that fellow Woelper'? " 

" Never saw him," was the answer, "but I tell 
you he 's a ' hustler.' " 

" Well, I know him ; supposing we go down and 
make him a call." 

So off they went, and you can imagine what the 
man thought when he found that his "hustler," 
"that fellow Woelper," was a very pretty, quite 
young woman, with refined manners, and a head 
as keen for business as his own. To use his ex- 
pression when speaking of it afterwards, you might 
have knocked him over with a feather. 

Mrs. Woelper is an enthusiast in her business. 
She says it is hard work, and carries a weight of 
responsibility with it, but it is pleasant, profitable 
and healthful. It compels the person who follows 
it to be a good deal in the open air, and keeps 
her well in spite of herself. Of course, a woman 
must have business ability; she must have the 
tact that shall enable her to meet people pleas- 
antly, and adapt herself to them. She must have 
a knowledge of market values of buildings and 
lands. She must understand all the laws that re- 
late to the governing of real estate ; of the con- 
veying of mortgages, and all the other business 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

technicalities. She must be up in the science of 
drainage and ventilation, so that she may be able 
to judge of the sanitary conditions of a house ; 
but this is something that every woman should 
understand, in order that she may protect herself 
and her family against the dangers that come 
from bad drainage and poor ventilation. There 
is nothing in all this that a bright woman may 
not learn, and learn very readily. It sounds much 
more formidable than it really is. Neither Mrs. 
Woelper nor Mrs. La Coste have found any diffi- 
culty whatever in acquiring all the knowledge 
needed. They did not gain it all at once; it has 
come by degrees as the need of it has been felt. 
Women are adaptable, very much more so than 
men, as a rule, and since this is true, there is no 
reason why they should not succeed as real estate 
brokers, since one of the greatest needs is that of 
adapting themselves to the persons with whom 
they come in contact. They must be as deeply 
interested in the man or woman who has a small 
place for sale, or who desires to purchase a cheap 
house, as they are in those who have the larger 
commissions for them. It is Mrs. Woelper's plan 
that every customer shall bring another, and she 
works constantly with that end in view. And, 
my dear girls, who purpose to go into business, 
that is a good plan to go on always. Said a mer- 



REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE 

chant to me one day, after he had reproved a 
clerk for carelessness and inattention, and had met 
with the excuse that all the woman wanted was a 
paper of needles: 

" It isn't the value of the sale ; it is the fact of 
the sale. A woman comes here for a paper of 
needles ; if she is made to feel that it is a pleasure 
to serve her, she is coming again ; not only will 
she come herself, but she will send others. If I 
lose her because the needles are given her as 
though she had insulted the store by making so 
small a purchase, it is a pretty expensive paper of 
needles for me ; I don't care to pay the price." 

And that is true of all sorts of business transac- 
tions. If it is made pleasant, the result is sensibly 
felt, and if it is made unpleasant, the result is just 
as apparent, and not satisfactorily so. Just bear 
that in mind, girls, and you've learned one lesson 
in the economies of business, and have obtained 
a principle that will be a help to you all the way 
through. 



XI 

INSURANCE AND ADVERTISING 

CT7HERE is nothing in the world that gives one 
I greater pleasure than to feel that some word 
spoken in earnest, and with a real purpose in it, 
meets with a response from another who seems 
to be waiting to catch just that word. It is such 
a blessed assurance that nothing is undertaken in 
vain ; that seed sowed seemingly at random finds 
mellow, waiting soil, and springs up, bringing 
promise of abundant harvest. 

It is so pleasant to feel that something you 
have said has brought suggestion to anyone. I 
speak of this because just now a card has reached 
me from a young woman who has started out as 
a tourist guide in her own native city of Boston, 
and as a commission shopper as well. She has 
been looking for some time for the something to 
do for which she is specially well fitted, and which 
she would like. She has not sat with folded 
hands while she has waited, not at all; she has 
done the work that has come to her to do, but in 
the meantime she has kept a pair of very bright 
eyes open for the right thing. It has come at 



/JVS URA NCE A ND A D VER TISING 

last, and she has started out to see what can be 
done. I hope she will succeed, and, indeed, I 
think she will, for such sturdy courage as she has 
shown in making her fight with circumstance is 
not easily daunted. Now, if any of my readers 
are visiting Boston and want some one to show 
them about, or have friends coming here who are 
strange to the city and want to see as much as 
they can in a short time, it would be a very good 
plan for them to. write Miss Alice C. Bradbury, 
No. 40 Berkeley street, Boston, and ask her to 
meet them at the station on their arrival, and at- 
tend to them while they are in town. It will be 
both pleasant and profitable for all parties. 

The advantage of a tourist guide was made 
more than ever apparent to me by an experience 
which I had in a railway train not long since. I 
had taken the cars on the New York and New 
England railroad, for my summer home about 
twenty-five miles from the city, and was sharing 
the seat with a very bright, pretty girl, who, I 
soon found from her conversation with another 
young lady in the seat back of her, had been " do- 
ing" Boston. She was very much mixed up about 
places and buildings, the only point that she 
seemed to have distinctly in mind being the Art 
Museum. Now Copley Square, in which the 
Museum is situated, has about it, as all Bostonians 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

know, some very important buildings. Here is 
beautiful Trinity Church with La Farge's wonder- 
ful interior characters ; here is the new Public Li- 
brary, rapidly approaching completion ; here is the 
new church building of the Old South Society, 
and the new building of the Old Second Church 
of Boston, and here is the famous Chauncy Hall 
School from which so many of Boston's notable 
men have been graduated. Why, the little triangle 
that everybody will call a square, is full of interest 
to the stranger. I heard these young girls won- 
dering about it all, and quite forgetting that they 
were strangers, I began telling them just what 
they wanted to know. How glad they were to 
know all this, and how sorry that they had missed 
the knowledge when they were on the spot. Of 
course, they knew all about Dr. Phillips Brooks, 
and they were so disappointed when they knew 
that they had passed by his church, which they 
might have gone into had they known. The Pub- 
lic Library they had noticed, and the Technology 
buildings and the Natural History rooms, but did 
not know what they were. They had had friends 
from Chauncy Hall and knew all about it, and to 
think they had been so near it, and did not realize 
its nearness. I found in talking with them that they 
really had seen nothing of the city that they should 
have seen ; they had been to Nantasket beach, 



INSURANCE AND ADVERTISING 

and had ridden aimlessly about in horse cars, hop- 
ing to stumble upon something. But they had 
not been to the beautiful parks, the open-air gym- 
nasium, the old Paul Revere house, the North 
Church where the lantern hung, nor any of the 
real places of interest. Now, if they had only had 
some one to show them about, they would have 
seen all these things, and more too, and would 
have carried away a very good knowledge of what 
Boston held of interest. 

Just here I would like to say that I wish I could 
reply personally to all the letters I receive from 
girls and women, detailing their experiences. It 
is impossible to do this, however, and I take this 
opportunity of saying how much in sympathy I 
am with all the work of endeavor, how glad I am 
for every success. I wish I could plan ways for 
all who ask, but that is quite impossible. I can 
only give the suggestion and the advice ; the car- 
rying out must be done by yourselves. I give in 
my papers, as far as possible, the ways to do, but, 
of course, anyone attempting the work may find it 
necessary to modify or adapt these ways to meet 
individual cases. You must use judgment and 
thought, and perhaps you may have to experiment 
a little, but earnest purpose and courage always 
win. It may need a little patience; things don't 
come the first minute ; if you can only remember 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

that you are to persist. I have known people 
who have given up just on the eve of success. 
They have been almost at the point of attainment 
when patience and courage have failed them, and 
they have let go their hold, and lost what they 
might have kept. This in answer to the many 
letters and appeals which I have received. 

I cannot tell you very much about it, but I 
know that some women are making a success in 
the insurance business. I know one woman in 
Boston who has all she can do. She is making a 
good income, and has been so successful that she 
has been given the agency of several of the lead- 
ing companies of London. She has an office in 
one of the largest business buildings in the city, 
and it is a busy place. The detail of work I can- 
not tell you about, but I know this one woman 
says that it is a good and remunerative business for 
her sex, and she wonders that more of them do not 
take it up. I don't know whether there is another 
woman insurance agent in the country, but I know 
this one, and know that she is an enthusiast in 
her business. I would like to give you her name, 
but she is very sensitive about being talked of, and 
I promised her that I would only give the fact of 
her success, if she would allow it, as I wanted it to 
use as a suggestion for some of the girls who might 
like to try the experiment for themselves. Many 



INSURANCE AND ADVERTISING 

women are employed in the agencies as clerks, 
but 1 don't believe there are many who have at- 
tempted to establish themselves as agents. 

Another business which women are entering is 
that of advertising agents, and in this they have suc- 
ceeded admirably. The late Mrs. Susan C. Vogl 
was for many years the advertising agent for the 
Woman s Journal, and she brought the paper into 
prosperity by her able endeavors. She made her- 
self friends by her genial cordiality. She was true 
and honest, and her every statement could be 
relied upon. Men used to say sometimes that 
they would give Mrs. Vogl advertisements when 
they would not give them to anyone else. It 
was Mrs. Vogl's sunniness that won every time, 
and her genuine good will to everybody. There 
are one or two advertising firms in Boston com- 
posed of women, and they do a very good busi- 
ness. They have a large number of patrons, and 
they control several newspapers. They evidently 
are making money, for everything about them 
bears the stamp of prosperity. 

I know of only one woman who has under- 
taken railroad advertising, and she has done so well 
that her story is worth telling. She controls the 
advertising along the entire line of the New York 
and New England railroad, and no one can ad- 
vertise without making the terms through her. 
19 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

When the Chicago fire occurred, she was a happy 
young wife, with a lovely little baby, living in the 
midst of luxury, for she was the petted daughter 
of rich parents, and the cherished wife of a still 
more wealthy man. This young couple had every- 
thing before them to make life bright and pleas- 
ant. Riches, social position, youth, a lovely 
home, a dear little girl — it seemed as though 
nothing was wanting. But the fire came, and 
swept away everything; the home, the property, 
all, and left them with little beside themselves, 
and their youth, their baby and their willing 
hands. If that had been the end ! But the hus- 
band and father fell ill from exposure at the time 
of the fire, and died, leaving the young wife and 
baby to face the world alone. They had some- 
thing left, but not enough to live as the wife 
would like, and there would be the child to edu- 
cate. So she came East and went to work. She 
had friends in plenty, and there were those who 
were ready to give her a home, and render it un- 
necessary to labor. But she was an independent 
body, and she proposed to work out her own 
destiny. She tried one or two things, going a 
step in advance every change that she made, until 
finally this opportunity came to her. It was a 
large undertaking, but it found a woman ready to 
meet it, and not only ready but entirely able. She 



INSURANCE AND ADVERTISING 

undertook the work, and is making a great suc- 
cess of it. She has an office in Boston where she 
makes her contracts, attending personally to them, 
for she has found that her own judgment is better 
than anyone's whom she can obtain, and the 
terms are sure to be more satisfactory if she makes 
them herself. She is a capital business woman, 
and no man ever attempts taking unfair advantage 
because she is a woman. Throughout all she has 
remained the same refined, charming woman that 
she was when she was a purely society woman ; 
and she is so evidently the gentlewoman that 
men become more gracious when in her presence, 
recognizing the womanly element even when in 
the most intricate of business problems. Her 
little daughter has grown to gracious sweet 
womanhood, under a careful mother's eye, and is 
the housekeeper and home companion in a dear 
little cozy home in a fashionable quarter of Bos- 
ton, where she is surrounded by the friends who 
have stood by her all through her career. 

It is the presence of women of this kind in the 
business world that makes it a desirable place for 
other women. It is the influence of women like 
this that makes it easier for other women when 
they are in the world, and it is an example like 
hers that should be regarded by the women who 
are to become business women. 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

There is one thing that this woman does not do 
that I would like to emphasize. She does not 
consider it necessary, because she has her way to 
make in the world, and because she does it in the 
business world, to copy the dress and manners of 
the men whom she meets. She is essentially 
womanly in dress and manner. She does not 
wear Henley shirts nor four-in-hand neckties. She 
is content to be a woman, and to keep her 
womanly ways. She wears, as she should, simple 
tailor-made dresses at her office, but there is no 
suggestion of mannishness about them. Her 
bonnets are becoming, and her hair prettily ar- 
ranged. All the trifling accessories of the toilet 
are attended to, and she is as fresh and dainty in 
her office gown as she is in her pretty dresses at 
home. 

I wish I could imbue every girl, who is setting 
out to make her own way, with the idea that she 
will get on better, and win more genuine respect 
from those she comes in contact with, if she keeps 
her refined femininity, than she will by aping the 
men in dress or manner. Boldness is not inde- 
pendence, self-assertion is not success. Be what 
you are, and assume nothing else. Gain respect 
for your sex, by the respect that you win for 
yourself, by your honest, fearless, but sweet true 
womanliness. 



XII 

PIANO AND ORGAN TUNING 

I DON'T know how many of the girls, who are 
searching through these papers in the hope of 
finding the suggestion that shall open the way for 
their own advancement, know what successful 
piano and organ tuners girls make, nor how many 
there are employed in this business. Has it al- 
ways seemed to you a man's business? Well, 
why should it be? It is pleasant, not difficult, 
and more sheltered than many other employments 
which take women out of their homes. 

The first time that I ever saw them at such 
work, or even knew that they had attempted it, 
was when I visited the Estey Organ Factory in 
Brattleboro, Vt., a few years ago. This pretty 
town in the Connecticut valley was my girlhood's 
home, and on a return visit, I went through the 
enlarged organ manufactory, in company with my 
friend, Mrs. Fuller, whose father, Deacon Jacob 
Estey, was the founder of the business, and whose 
husband was a partner in the house. As we came 
out into the hall that led into the tuning depart- 
ment, Mrs. Fuller said to me: 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

"You will find somebody in here whom you 
know," at the same time opening a door. 

As I entered, a young woman looked up from 
the organ she was tuning, with an exclamation of 
surprise which I echoed. It was a former school- 
mate, whom I had not seen since we were in 
school together. I was surprised to find her 
there, and from her I learned that she was by no 
means the only woman employed there in the 
same capacity — that of tuner. 

u Deacon Estey," as everyone called him, was 
a very progressive man, and his daughter stood in 
as high regard as his son in the family. He be- 
lieved in woman's capacity and ability to do the 
finer parts of mechanical work, and when the op- 
portunity came he put his theory to a practical test. 
When a woman was introduced into the factory, 
the men tuners were very indignant, and after 
holding a meeting at which they expressed them- 
selves very freely, and worked themselves into a 
very wrathy frame of mind, they waited upon 
their employer and demanded that the offending 
woman be sent away. The alternative was given 
him of discharging her or losing them. He 
listened to them very patiently, and when they 
were through, he answered them with as much 
determination as they had shown, but with no 
anger. The woman was there, she did her work 



PIANO AND ORGAN TUNING 

satisfactorily, she was to stay. Of course, they 
could do as they chose about remaining; every 
man had a right to do what seemed best for him, 
self; but he should never be guilty of an injustice 
to please anyone. The men listened, withdrew — 
and stayed. As the work increased and the busi- 
ness was enlarged, other women were taken in. 

It is a pleasure to be able to record that this intro- 
duction of women was not made in the interests 
of " economy ; " they received the same wages as 
the men who did the same kind of work, and had 
every advantage that was given their fellow workers. 
Good Deacon Esteyhas gone on, out of this world, 
but women should always have a kindly thought 
for him, and hold him in grateful remembrance. 

A few years since, not more than ten, in re- 
sponse to the rapidly increasing demand for prac- 
tical instruction in tuning pianos, there was intro- 
duced into the New England Conservatory, a 
department which should afford special facilities 
for the development of this important art. Among 
those who applied for admission were a number 
of young women ; they were cordially welcomed, 
for Dr. Tourjee is another man who believes in the 
capacity of women to excel in various directions. 
Their progress was noted with special interest, for 
these were the first, so far as can be learned, who 
had undertaken, in Boston at least, a systematic 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

study of the theory and practice of tuning. To 
the great satisfaction of the management, their 
advancement was, from the start, both rapid and 
thorough, and before the first term was ended, it 
became evident that a new field of endeavor had 
been found for girls. As time passed, the highest 
expectations were abundantly realized ; the young 
women easily kept pace with the young men who 
were pursuing the same course, and amply proved 
their entire ability to excel in this new line of work. 
From that time the proportion of women to men 
students has constantly increased, until now they 
bid fair to be in the majority ; and years of active 
effort by the women who have received an educa- 
tion in this department have proved beyond a 
question their special adaptation to the work. 

In introducing this new profession for women, 
it was fully expected that the same prejudice and 
opposition would be encountered which have al- 
ways greeted any innovation, and those who were 
instrumental in bringing the movement forward, 
prepared themselves carefully to defend it. They 
knew that the objections would be just what they 
turned out to be. The first one was that young 
women would lack the necessary physical strength. 
To this they had the ready reply that the demands 
made upon the strength were not so great as were 
those made in factories, mills, sewing rooms, or 



PIANO AND ORGAN TUNING 

even kitchens ; in fact, that the tuner's work was 
not so fatiguing as were many of the employments 
in which women were constantly engaged, and 
which came under the head of " women's work." 
The second objection made was that women, as a 
rule, lacked mechanical ingenuity. The only an- 
swer needed to this objection was to point to the 
many manufactories where the nicest mechanical 
skill is necessary, and which are crowded by women 
operatives. The third objection was that women 
lacked the power of application necessary to the 
acquirement of a difficult mechanical art. Time 
has answered that argument, as it alone could, and 
the experience of the years since the department 
was first instituted has proven that young women, 
with the naturally delicate ear and touch, possess 
peculiar qualifications for this work, and that the 
fine discrimination necessary to the tuning of an 
instrument is characteristic of them. 

The attractions which the profession of tuning 
presents are many. The work itself is well classed 
among the arts, being the correct adjustment of a 
musical instrument to the purposes of artistic ex- 
pression. But I said, in the beginning, that the 
occupations to be considered would not lie in the 
provinces of the arts or professions, so, to be quite 
consistent, I shall speak of this new work as an 
employment or a business, 



BUSINESS OPENINGS FOR GIRLS 

The manual labor necessary to the accomplish- 
ment of this branch of work, is calculated to make 
it healthful and strengthening, and the mental 
application is sufficient to impart zest and interest 
to it, while it is attended also with the satisfaction 
of immediate results. Aside from the limited 
amount of tuning done during the construction of 
the instrument, the sphere of the tuner in the 
homes of the people, or in the warerooms of mu- 
sic dealers, lies in sharp contrast to the life in 
shops and mills. The profession is conspicuously 
one in which there is, and is to be, plenty of room. 
A glance at the actual condition of the country, 
as concerns the tuning of pianos, and the numbers 
of instruments demanding constant attention, 
proves this. In the cities, naturally enough, the 
profession is fairly represented, although there the 
number of thoroughly educated tuners is limited, 
while, as I dare say many of you realize, in almost 
any part of the United States there are whole 
counties, containing hundreds of pianos, with new 
ones being constantly added, where only an occa- 
sional traveling tuner can be found to hurriedly 
attend to them all. With the vast number of old 
pianos, which each year demand more care, as 
they show additional signs of wear, and the thou- 
sands of new ones, which scores of manufactories 
are producing yearly, to say nothing of many 



PIANO AND ORGAN TUNING 

times the number of organs, there is surely no 
occupation which promises a more abundant and 
ever-increasing business than this of tuning. Every 
piano made requires care, whether it is used much 
or little. And as the country increases in wealth 
and the art of music becomes more universal, es- 
pecially as pianos become lower in price, and are 
in even greater demand than now, the question 
very naturally arises, who shall keep these count- 
less numbers in condition to be used ? This, then, 
is a new field of labor opening to women, another 
avenue in which our girls may seek employment. 

Not every girl would succeed ; not every girl 
will be attracted to the new field ; but there is 
work and remuneration for those who are. In re- 
gard to the qualifications necessary to a perfect 
acquirement of this business, it may be said that 
a correct musical ear, a fair amount of musical in- 
telligence, and a desire to excel, are the requisites. 

It has been impossible, in these chapters, to do 
more than indicate certain ways, out of many 
others, by which girls may obtain a livelihood, and 
make an assured future for themselves. If the 
hints that have been given shall be found to con- 
tain anything of value to the readers, if any have 
been helped out of dark places, and set on the 
way with faces toward the light, I shall feel that 
the work has not been in vain. 



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GERMANY'S IRON CHANCELLOR. 

By Bruno Garlepp. Translated from the German by Sidney Whitman, F. R. G. S., 
author of " Imperial Germany," " The Realm of the Hapsburgs," "Teutonic Studies," etc. 
The styles of binding and prices are as follows : 

Fine vellum cloth, emblematic gold stamp, red edges, 475 pages, $8.00. 

Half morocco, gold stamped, 475 pages, $10.00. 

Full morocco, gold side and back stamps, gilt edges, 475 pages, $12.00* 

THE WERNER UNIVERSAL EDUCATOR. 

A manual of self-instruction in all branches of popular education. A complete cyclo- 
pedia of reference, in history, science, business, and literature. An imperial volume, 10^ 
inches long, 9 inches wide, and contains 830 double column pages ; also one million facts 
and figures, one thousand forms and rules, five hundred illustrations, one hundred 
colored plates and diagrams, and sixty colored maps, all down to date. Half seal. 
Price, $5.50. Cloth, $4.00. 

STREET TYPES OF GREAT CITIES. 

By Sigmund Kransz. The queer people that you sometimes see as you wend your 
way through the crowded thoroughfares of a great city. The author has largely caught 
them with his camera, and we have before us snap shots, true to life, of all sorts and 
conditions of men. Price, $1.00. 

STEAM, STEEL AND ELECTRICITY. 

By Jas. W. Steele. A new book which ought to be in every household in the 
country where there are young people, or their elders, who take an interest in the prog- 
ress of the age. The book tells in plain, clear language the story of steam, of the age of 
steel, and the story of electricity. An up-to-date non-technical work for the general reader. 
Scientific in its facts, it is interesting as a novel. Illustrated by many pictures and dia- 
grams. i2mo., half Russia. Price, $1.00. 

MANUAL OF USEFUL INFORMATION. 

A pocket encyclopedia. A world of knowledge. Embracing more than 1,000,000 
facts, figures, and fancies, drawn from every land and language, and carefully classified 
for the ready reference of teachers, students, business men, and the family circle. Com- 
piled by a score of editors under the direction of Mr. J. C. Thomas, with an introduction 
by Frank A. Fitzpatrick, superintendent of city schools, Omaha, Neb. Full Morocco, 
gilt. Price, $3.00. 

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THE WERNER COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 

SCENIC AMERICA. 

Or the Beauties of the Western Hemisphere. 256 half-tone pictures, with descriptions 
by John I,. Stoddard. Size, 11x14 inches, 128 pages. Bound in cloth with handsome 
side stamp. Price, 75 cents. 

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF GENERAL NELSON A. MILES. 

The wonderful career of a self-made man. How he rose from a Second lieutenant 
to the rank of Commander in Chief of the United States Army. Embracing the thrilling 
story of his famous Indian campaigns. In this volume the reader is brought face to 
face with the great Indian leaders : Geronimo, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, 
I^ame Deer, etc. One of the most remarkable books of the century. A massive volume 
of 600 pages, printed on fine super-calendered paper, with nearly 200 superb engravings. 
Illustrated by Frederic Remington and other eminent artists. Every page bristles 
with interest. An ever-changing panorama. A history in itself, distinctive, thrilling and 
well nigh incredible. Artistic cloth, chaste and elegant design, plain edges, $4.00. 

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF TEACHING. 

Presents the complete writings of David P. Page, edited by Supt. J. M. Greenwood, 
of the Kansas City Schools, assisted by Prof. Cyrus W. Hodgin, of Earlham College, 
Ind. This new, revised and enlarged edition of this marvelously popular work contaius 
a fresh and exceedingly interesting life of its noted author, with portrait. i2tno., 343 
pages, cloth binding. Price, $1.50. 

THE TEACHER IN LITERATURE. 

Revised edition, is a publication of exceptional merit, containing selections from 
Ascham, Rousseau, Shenstone, Pestalozzi, Cowper, Goethe, Irving, Mitford, Bronte, 
Thackeray, Dickens, and others who have written on subjects pertaining to educational 
work from the Elizabethan period down. To this edition Dr. B. A. Hindsdale, Professor 
of Pedagogy, University of Michigan, has added an exhaustive paper on the history of 
the schoolmaster from earliest times as he appears in literature. i2mo. 447 pages. Price, 
$1.50. 

HAGNER'S STANDARD HORSE AND STOCK BOOK. 

A complete pictorial encyclopedia of practical reference for horse and stock owners. 
By D. Magner, author of the Art of Taming and Training Horses, assisted by twelve 
leading veterinary surgeons. Comprising over 1,200 pages. Containing over 1,750 illus- 
trations. The finest and most valuable farmer's book in the world. Cloth binding, 
$4.00; half Russia, $5.50. 

MARTIAL RECITATIONS. 

Collected by Jas. Henry Brownlee. A timely book. Martial recitations, heroic, 
pathetic, humorous. The rarest gems of patriotic prose and poetry. Non-sectional, 
enthusing. i2mo; 232 pages ; large, sharp type ; excellent paper ; silk cloth binding, gay 
and attractive. Price, $1 .00; the same in handsome paper binding. 50 cents. 

PRACTICAL LESSONS IN SCIENCE. 

By Dr. J. T. Scovell, for ten years Professor of Natural Science in the Indiana 
State Normal School. Price, $1.50. 

WOMAN, HER HOME, HEALTH AND BEAUTY. 

A book that every lady should study and every household possess. An intensely 
interesting chapter on girlhood. Education of women. A very practical chapter on 
general hygiene, including hygiene of the skin and hygiene of the digestive organs. 
Sympathetic articles on motherhood and the hygiene of childhood. Also hygiene of the 
respiratory organs, hygiene of the eye, hygiene of the ear, hygiene of the generative 
organs. Cloth, 75 cents ; paper, 50 cents. 

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PRACTICAL LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 

By Wm. O. Krohn, Ph. D., Professor of Psychology and Pedagogy in the University 
of Illinois. Price $1.50. 

KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. 

A hundred anecdotes of a hundred famous men, — our eminent orators, wits and 
sages. Who they are. How they have achieved fame. Their ups and downs in life, — 
Artemus Ward, Henry Ward Beecher, Josh Billings, John B. Gough, Petroleum V. Nasby, 
Robert J. Burdette, Dwight I,. Moody, Robert G. Ingersoll, Bill Nye, Robert Collyer, 
Danbury News Man, T. DeWitt Talmage, Eli Perkins, Sam Jones, Geo. W. Peck, Wen- 
dell Phillips, Mrs. Partington, Prof. David Swing, Archdeacon Farrar, Bill Arp, etc. 
Large octavo volume, 7x10 inches ; 600 pages ; full of illustrations ; fine paper ; large, clear 
type ; attractive binding. Cloth, plain edges. Price, SI. 50. 

LITTLE FOLKS' LIBRARY. 

A set of six instructive and vastly entertaining midget volumes, written expressly 
for this library by carefully chosen authors. Illustrated by noted artists. Each book 
contains 128 pages, and from twenty to thirty-three full-page illustrations. The books are 
bound in Skytogan, are sewed, and have the appearance of 4< old folks "books in miniature. 

RHYME UPON RHYME. 

Edited by Amelia Hofer, ex-president Kindergarten Department of National 
Educational Association. Illustrated by Harry O. Landers, of the Chicago Times staff. 
LITTLE FARHERS. 
By W. O. Krohn, Ph. D., Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois. Illustrated 
by Wm. Ottman. 

CIRCUS DAY. 
By George Ade, special writer for the Chicago Record. Illustrated by John T. 
McCutcheon. 

FAIRY TALES. 
From Shakespeare. By Fay Adams Britton, Shakespearian writer. Illustrated by 
Wm. Ottman. Vol. I. The Tempest ; Vol. II. The Merchant of Venice. A Winter's Tale. 
STORIES FROM HISTORY. 
By John Hazelden, historian. Illustrated by John T. McCutcheon, of the Chicago 
Record staff. Price, 50 cents per set. 

BEAUTIFUL BRITAIN. 

The scenery and splendors of the United Kingdom. Royal residences, palaces, 
castles, bowers, hunting lodges, river banks and islets, abbeys and halls, the homes of 
princes, views of noted places, historic landmarks and ancient ruins in the Lands of the 
Rose and Thistle. A magnificent collection of views, with elaborate descriptions and 
many interesting historical notes. Text set with emblematic borders, printed in a tint. 
A fine example of up-to-date printing. Large quarto volume, 11^x13^ inches, 385 pages, 
extra enameled paper. Extra English cloth, $4.50; half morocco, full gilt edges, 
$6.00 ; full morocco, full gilt edges, $7.50. 

A VOYAGE IN THE YACHT SUNBEAM. 

" Our home on the Ocean for Eleven Months." By Lady Brassey. The verdict of 
the public: "One of the most delightful and popular narratives of travel ever written. 
Both entertaining and instructive." For old and young alike. Size, 6x9 inches; 480 
pages; many illustrations; extra quality paper. Cloth, gold stamped, $1.50; half mo- 
rocco gold stamped, $2.00 ; full morocco, gold stamped, gilt edges, 92.50. 

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of the advertised price. 

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THE WERNER COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 

MAGNER'S STANDARD HORSE BOOK. 

By D. Magner. The well-known authority on training, educating, taming and 
treating horses. The most complete work of the kind in existence ; strongly endorsed by 
leading horse experts everywhere. I<arge quarto volume ; 638 pages ; over one thousand 
illustrations. Half Russia binding. Price, $2*50* 

THE BIBLE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 

In words of easy reading. The sweet stories of God's word. In the language of 
childhood. By the gifted author, Josephine Pollard. Beautifully illustrated with 
nearly two hundred fifty striking original engravings and world-famous masterpieces 
of Sacred Art, and with magnificent colored plates. The Bible For Young People is 
complete in one sumptuous, massive, nearly square octavo volume, of over five hundred 
pages. Bound in extra cloth, ink and gold sides and back. $1.50. 

GLIMPSES OF THE WORLD. 

Hundreds of full-page views. Portraying scenes all over the world. The views 
composing this superb volume are reproduced by the perfected half-tone process from 
photographs collected by the celebrated traveler and lecturer, John L,. Stoddard, by 
whom the pictures are described in graphic language. In Glimpses of the World is 
presented a grand panorama of Kngland, Scotland, and Ireland, France, Germany, 
Russia, Austria, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Asia, Africa, and North and South America. Un- 
questionably the finest work of the kind ever printed. Buckram. Price, $4.50* 

THE WERNER POCKET ATLAS OF THE UNITED STATES. 

A real pocket atlas 5x3^ inches, 96 pages, leatherette covers. Needed by every 
traveling man. Should be on every desk. Price, 10 cents. 

THE CAPITOL COOK BOOK. 

448 pages, 8^x6 inches ; weight, 1% pounds ; over 1,400 tested recipes by Hugo Zieman, 
ex-steward of the White House, and the well-known expert, Mrs. F. I,. Gillette. 
Illustrated. Price, 50 cents. 

THE WALDORF COOK BOOK. 

By " Oscar " of the Waldorf. The most thorough and complete treatise on Practical 
Cookery ever published. The author, Oscar Tschirky, Maitre d'Hotel, The Waldorf and 
Astoria, is acknowledged to be one of the foremost culinary authorities of the world. 
Elaborate directions are given for making ice creams, ices, pastries and tea and coffee. 
Selections may be made to gratify any taste. Original and varied recipes are given for 
making toothsome confections, preserves, jams, pickles and other condiments. Over 
900 pages. Valuable information, indispensable to families, hotels, cafes and boarding 
houses. Wholesome, palatable, economic and systematic cooking. Everything used as 
food is fully considered. Nearly 4,000 recipes. The best and most comprehensive cook 
book compiled. Special features, such as suggestions with regard to the kitchen, menus, 
bills of fare, the seasons, market, etc., etc. Size, 8x10^ x 2^ inches. Bound in one 
large octavo volume of over 900 pages in handsome oil cloth. Price, %2* 50« 

THE STORY OF AMERICAN HEROISM. 

As told by the Medal Winners and Roll of Honor men. A remarkable collection of 
thrilling, historical incidents of personal adventures during and after the great Civil 
War. Narratives by such heroes as Gen. L,ew Wallace, Gen. O. O. Howard, Gen. 
Alex. Webb, Gen. Fitzhtjgh L,ee, Gen. Wade Hampton. A war gallery of noted men 
and events. A massive volume of over 700 pages, printed on fine calendered paper. 
Illustrated with three hundred original drawings of personal exploits. English cloth, 
emblematic design in gold and colors, S2.50. 

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JUL 25 l aas 



